The Riots

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to secure the debate. The riots in early August took place in many parts of the country, but the images that many will long remember—the House of Reeves furniture store on fire, Monika Konczyk jumping from a first floor window—were images of my home town. It is good to see the right hon. Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) here. We represent different parties in this House. He may not agree with everything I have to say today, but we are united in our determination to uncover the facts about what happened on that night, and to see something positive come from the ashes at Reeves Corner and along the London road in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) has asked me to put on record his apologies for not being here; he is abroad on Foreign Affairs Committee business.

On 11 August, the House had just over four hours to debate what happened in many parts of London and in some of our major cities. Many hon. Members, including some whose constituencies were affected, did not get to speak. Although the work of the Riots, Communities And Victims Panel and the Metropolitan police’s own internal review are still ongoing, two months on we have a much clearer picture of what happened, what the appropriate lessons are for public policy and what still needs to be done.

I want to start with the issue of who, or what, was responsible. Much media coverage in the immediate aftermath of the riots featured the term, “feral youth”. The implication was of a lot of teenagers on the rampage. There was also a lot of discussion about whether this was a direct result of the very difficult decisions that the Government have made in relation to public spending.

Talking to my borough commander, and having had the opportunity to review much of the CCTV footage in Croydon, it is clear that there was a significant degree of organisation—it was not just a spontaneous protest. According to figures from the Prince’s Trust, 19% of those in London who have been arrested are known gang members. Undoubtedly, a number of others who were arrested are involved in gangs, although that involvement may not yet be known to the police. Data published in September by the Ministry of Justice showed that, of the 1,715 who came before the courts by midday on 12 September, 73% had a previous caution or conviction, and the average number of offences that they were guilty of was 15.

On the age of those responsible, the Ministry of Justice figures for the whole country show that 21% of those who came before the courts were under the age of 18. Some 52% were under the age of 21. The figures that I have obtained from the borough commander in Croydon show that the age profile of those involved in the offences in Croydon is significantly older. Just 15% of those arrested are under the age 18, and only 38% are under the age of 21. The picture given that it was just teenagers who were responsible for these offences is therefore highly inaccurate. I think that all hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to regret the demonisation of a whole generation of young people.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is building a powerful case. Does he agree—he has already presented some figures—that those involved in the riots in London, as with the disturbances in Gloucester, were mostly people with previous convictions or warnings? Although there is much to be done to highlight opportunities, especially employment opportunities, we should not confuse the treatment of one with work on the other. Responsibility is key.

[Gavin Barwell]

I agree. Both are issues, but we should start with the individual responsibility of those involved. I will come on to develop both of those points during my speech.

The first lesson is the importance of tackling gang culture. My starting point on the issue is that this is not just a matter for the police. We cannot simply enforce the problem away. We also need to offer a way out of gangs to young people, many of whom may have felt pressured, in terms of their own safety, to get involved. We need to work with the local communities that are suffering from this problem to ensure that they are involved in bringing peer pressure to bear on those who are involved. There is a lot in the Centre for Social Justice report, “Dying to belong”, which was published in February 2009.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is talking about breaking gang culture. Does he agree that young people tend to be drawn to gang culture largely because of a lack of good role models in the community, a poverty of aspiration and the lack of social mobility in our country?

[Gavin Barwell]

Those are all factors. We could also look at family breakdown, and particularly a lack of male role models across the piece. As I said, the CSJ report has compelling analysis about what leads people to get involved. I look forward to the Government’s statement, which, the Minister may confirm, should be made in a couple of weeks’ time, on how they intend to respond.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I commend the role that he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) played during the disorder. As he knows, the Home Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry and is coming to Croydon on 21 October. Has he had an opportunity to look at the evidence that Bill Bratton and the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner gave to the Select Committee on Tuesday, when there was a comparison between gang culture in this country and in the United States? Does the hon. Gentleman think that that could be helpful, as we try to fashion an acceptable way of dealing with the problem?

[Gavin Barwell]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I have not had a chance to see that evidence. When I leave the Chamber, I will look at it. It is important to look at what has been achieved elsewhere in the UK and abroad to deal with these problems. I will now try to make a bit of progress, because I want to allow all the hon. Members here to contribute to the debate.

The second lesson is one that the Secretary of State for Justice has set out clearly: it is about changing how our prisons operate in order to tackle the issue of reoffending. Clearly, many of the people who were involved in these disturbances had been through our prison system, and it did not do anything to change their pattern of behaviour.

On the police response, the briefing that all London Members have received from the Metropolitan police tells us that there were 3,380 officers on duty on the Saturday, 4,275 on duty on the Sunday, 6,000 on the Monday when the disturbances in Croydon took place, and 16,000 on the Tuesday. It then, with commendable honesty, states:

“Were adequate resources deployed”

over the weekend and on the Monday?

“With the benefit of hindsight the answer would have to be no.”

I think that all hon. Members who represent London constituencies would share that judgment.

The third lesson for the Government is clearly that police numbers matter. Yes, the police cannot be exempt from the need to save money to deal with the deficit that we have inherited. Yes, we can do much, much more to ensure that more police officers spend their time actively and visibly on patrol on our streets. At the end of last year, however, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice said:

“I don’t think anyone…would make a simple link between the increase in the numbers of police officers and what has happened to crime. There is no such link.”

When the riots broke out, the response of the Government and the police was a two-and-a-half-fold increase in the number of police officers on the streets—and it worked. The Government are right to say that numbers are not the only game in town, but they are clearly an important part of it.

The performance of the police from Tuesday 9 August onwards was significantly better. I had the pleasure—on the Tuesday, when the Mayor of London came to Croydon—to meet the person who is now the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and was enormously impressed with a pep talk that I overheard him give to a number of officers who went through a very difficult time the night before. A much more robust approach from the police, in terms of breaking up groups of people who were attempting to form, is what prevented further disturbances from happening. It has also been enormously important to see police officers proactively going out, knocking down doors and arresting suspects in the early hours of the morning. It is important that the people involved in the disturbances do not feel, and their friends and neighbours do not feel, that they won—that they beat the police. The robust approach that we have seen since then is important.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

I ask this question as the chair of the all-party group on retail and business crime. A lot of retailers feel that crime against their shops is seen as a victimless crime. Does my hon. Friend agree that a lot of people who were committing these crimes felt that they were committing a victimless crime because in the past sentencing had not been robust enough?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will come on to sentencing in a second, but anyone under the illusion that those crimes were victimless should consider the experience in Croydon. As I am sure the right hon. Member for Croydon North will say, the devastated shops were not those of the major multinational businesses but of small businesses—family businesses on one premises—often owned by members of the black and minority ethnic community. The crimes were absolutely not victimless.

As of 10 October, 2,819 arrests had been made throughout London and 1,700 people charged. The cost of that operation so far to the police in Croydon is £1.4 million. Clearly, the police face a difficult time on budgets, so who will pay for that? On 11 August, the Prime Minister said on the Floor of the House:

“the bill for the Metropolitan police force for the past few days will be large and, if they continue to deploy in those numbers, it will get larger and the Treasury will stand behind that.”—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1065.]

There is still uncertainty in the Metropolitan police about where the money is coming from, and I hope that the Minister will provide reassurance.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

As well as the policing costs, under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 responsibility for uninsured losses falls on police authorities. Even if insurance claims are paid, the insurers who have paid may recover their loss from the police authorities. Two days ago, in the House, that figure was estimated to be £330 million. Does that not add some force to my hon. Friend’s point?

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend has real expertise in the area and he makes a powerful point. We need reassurance on both those issues. I will now make some progress, if hon. Members will permit me, because I want to allow time for everyone present to speak in the debate.

The Metropolitan police estimates that in London alone there are more than 20,000 hours of closed-circuit TV to view. That gives rise to a lesson and to a question. The lesson is the importance of CCTV. There are legitimate civil liberties concerns—no Member would want our country covered in surveillance cameras—but CCTV has played a crucial role in bringing people guilty of offences to justice. I was much encouraged that on 11 August the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary made more positive noises about the contribution that CCTV can make. I understand why the Government wish to ensure that, when a system is introduced, the proper checks are made, but I will be grateful to hear from the Minister that the Government recognise the important contribution that CCTV can make to deterring crime and catching criminals.

My question concerns the police estimate that it will take nearly 12 months to review the remaining evidence. The Government must ask whether it is reasonable for such a review to take that long. If not, the Met police will need assistance from outside London, not to patrol the streets as they did in the immediate aftermath of the riots, but to get through all the evidence.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I will, for the last time, but then I must make progress.

[Heidi Alexander]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate.

In Lewisham, the borough commander tells me that he has a team of 25 police officers currently reviewing some of that CCTV footage and investigating the riots. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about the potential impact on other policing in the borough, given the amount of resource dedicated to that?

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. For a few weeks after the riots, the public understood the need to concentrate all resources on the operation but, clearly, carrying that on for a whole year would impact on other areas of police work.

The next issue I want to refer to is the crucial one of intelligence. Crimestoppers has made a great contribution. The police will say that they were receiving intelligence from people who would not normally provide it. In the two weeks before the Conservative party conference, however, I visited every school and sixth-form college in my constituency, to talk to young people about their attitudes. On the vast suite of issues, their views were similar to those of my middle-aged and more elderly constituents, but on one issue there is a difference: their attitude towards the police. Young people of all backgrounds, but in particular young black men, do not have confidence that the police are there and on their side. I am in my late 30s, and it seems to me that the police have moved on a long way from the situation when I was growing up, but it is clear that a significant problem remains. The police must ensure that they win the respect and trust of the people they are policing. Policing in this country is based on the principle of policing by consent. At the moment, that consent is not there from crucial sections of the community that they need to police.

In Croydon, as in many other areas of the country, there was a huge public response, which was seen in the clean-up afterwards and in donations of money to help rebuild the House of Reeves store and some of the other damaged properties. Since the riots, I have seen more than 60 people in my surgery who have had ideas for projects to work with young people and to stop such events happening again. Government and local government must ask how we co-ordinate that upsurge of good will and ensure that some of those projects come to fruition.

I also wish to touch on the issue of bringing those responsible to justice. First, I want to praise the courts for the speed of their response. Court staff, some of whom may well be made redundant over the coming months as a result of the savings being made, went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the courts processed cases quickly. There must be a question for the Ministry of Justice about whether that swifter process of justice can be maintained so that those who have committed violent crimes are taken to court sooner, rather than after often long delays.

The Ministry of Justice research tells us that those who committed offences during the riots were more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence and a longer sentence than if they had committed the same offence a month earlier. I spent much of the summer defending that sentencing approach against various eminent lawyers on TV and radio, because it has done much to restore faith in our criminal justice system. I quote what his honour Judge Andrew Gilbert, QC, said when sentencing defendants at Manchester Crown court:

“The people of Manchester and Salford are all entitled to look to the law for protection and to the courts to punish those who behaved so outrageously. It would be wholly unreal therefore for me to have regard only to the specific acts which you committed as if they had been committed in isolation...Those acts were not committed in isolation and, as I have already indicated, it is a fact which substantially aggravates the gravity of this offence. The court has to pay regard to the level and nature of the criminal conduct that night, to its scale, the extent to which it was premeditated, the number of persons engaged…and finally…the specific acts of the individual defendant…For the purposes of these sentences, I have no doubt at all that the principal purpose is that the Courts should show that outbursts of criminal behaviour like this will be and must be met with sentences longer than they would be if the offences had been committed in isolation.”

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

I entirely agree with those sentiments, but does my hon. Friend accept my view that sentencing should and must remain an issue for an independent judiciary, whether courts or magistrates? The bigger concern was that some of the exemplary sentences in the immediate aftermath were being egged on by the political class or the press, and it would be a retrograde step for justice to be meted out in that way and not left firmly in the hands of those who are experienced in sentencing matters.

[Gavin Barwell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Decisions on individual sentences must be for judges and magistrates. It is reasonable for us as Members of Parliament to reflect in generality the views of our constituents, but the individual decisions must remain with judges and magistrates.

I wish to comment on some figures from my borough commander about the impact on crime resulting from that sentencing approach. If we compare Croydon in the period of 17 July to 14 August—including the day when the riots took place—with the period of 15 August to 11 September, property crime is well down, as we would expect because a huge number of property offences were committed on 8 August, but violent crime is down by more than 20%. That seems to show clearly that we are offered a false choice on crime and punishment, between those who argue for a tough punishment and that prison works and those who say that it and rehabilitation do not work and that people come out and reoffend. It seems to me that both those things are true: removing dangerous, violent people from the streets gives a break to the law-abiding and leads to a reduction in crime, but we must also reform our prisons so that they do a more effective job of rehabilitating people and changing their pattern of behaviour.

Finally, I want to turn to some of the underlying issues and come back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). It is important that Government and Opposition politicians reflect on some of their long-held views. When I listened to the statement and the debate on 11 August, some argued that the disorder was purely a matter of criminality and moral failing, while others argued that it was all about inequality and unfairness in society. It seems to me, again, that both arguments have some merit.

Clearly, there are issues about parenting and a lack of fathers. As a man, I certainly feel that there is a real role for making the case for the responsibility that men have, if they were present when the child was conceived, for the rest of that child’s life.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Gavin Barwell]

I need to make a little more progress, because I am conscious of time.

Clearly, we need to be careful about generalising. Several of my friends were brought up by single mums who did a great job, so we must not demonise any class of parents. There is, however, an issue about a lack of fathers and definitely an issue about people witnessing or experiencing violence at home. The WAVE Trust report in 2005 pointed that out strongly. There is a great community group in Croydon called Lives Not Knives, which works with ex-gang members, and I sat in one of its seminars about a month before the riots and listened to four ex-gang members, all of whom had either personally experienced or witnessed traumatic violence at a young age. There is a clear link between that and violent conduct later in life. I welcome what the Government are doing to address problem families and community budgeting. More could be done to promote fostering and adoption to take young people out of the care system, and clearly we must address educational disadvantage, exclusion and truancy.

I shall end by mentioning three issues to which I do not have a solution, but are relevant to the debate. On youth unemployment I obtained figures from the Library showing the trend in general unemployment versus youth unemployment over the past 20 years under Governments of all political complexions. In 1992, youth unemployment was two thirds higher than general unemployment. By 1997, it was double general unemployment; by 2001, it was 140% of the general unemployment rate; and in 2005, it was 165% of the general unemployment rate. We must address the other factors that are making it much harder for young people to find work in our society, relative to the general population.

We must also address the culture of materialism in society, which is one factor behind the behaviour we saw. It is clear from the situation in Croydon that there is an inextricable link between gang culture and the drugs trade. We must address the issue of how we deal with illegal drug use in our country.

I do not pretend to have answers to all the problems, but the emerging evidence of what happened throughout the country in early August has clear lessons for public policy. I look forward to hearing the contributions from other hon. Members.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I was not wearing my rosette on that occasion; I had taken it off. I was stopped and searched. I was not happy about it, but I understood. Obviously, I opened my mouth to speak, although I did not say who I was because I wanted to see how it would pan out, and it was okay.

Stop and search is a reality of communities such as mine, but it must be done with trust. I am also concerned about the officers who are doing it. If we are to have a Met, I want young people—I do not care what their colour is, actually—who have grown up on the streets of Hackney, Peckham, Camberwell, Tottenham and Kensal Rise in our police force. I do not want a police force that effectively consists of young men and women who have grown up anywhere but in London. I must say that too many officers come from far-flung areas, which means that the relationship-building process with communities is problematic.

[Gavin Barwell]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what is wrong is not the policy per se, but a lack of empathy and understanding on the part of young people of what it is like to be a police officer and to have to approach a group of young people and stop them? More importantly, as he says, there is a lack of understanding among police officers who are not local to a community about what it is like to be someone who is stopped every time they go out at the weekend and to see a lack of respect in the way that that is done? The problem is not the policy per se, but the way it is being applied.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman puts his point well. In a civilised country, a burden always lies on the majority, and some of what we say in such a country relates to how the minority are treated. I have met young men—good young men—at university. I asked two young men who run the youth group at my local church whether they had been stopped and searched. One had had a good experience; the other had had several experiences that were not so good and had left him embarrassed and demoralised in relation to his local community. The differentiation that one needs to make in a complex, multi-layered, multicultural, multiracial London of subcultures takes local knowledge and understanding, and we need to face up to that truth.

There are questions about why the rioting took place on the scale that it did, against the backdrop of 460 people having died as a result of police contact since the IPCC was set up and not one police officer having been convicted. I ask hon. Members to think about those statistics and about why a community such as mine finds it extraordinary that, following Mark Duggan’s death in August, measures were not put in place to anticipate the worst, given current levels of unemployment and the fact that too many young people were out on the streets with nothing to do.

It is important that I qualify my use of “young people”. When I speak to my secondary schools, not one of their young people has been arrested, and when I look at the profile of arrests, there is a tiny proportion of under-18s.

When someone gets well into their 20s, I believe that they account for their own behaviour, so the caricaturing of young people that I saw this summer and some of rhetoric about race made me deeply ashamed to be part of this country. It was so sad to see us slip back to the sort of discourse we saw in the 1980s. I was disappointed that major national shows such as “Newsnight” could get their presentation of the issues so badly wrong. Let me say in this House to David Starkey, “How do I sound? I sound English because I am English, thank you very much.” For one of our historians to be allowed to question me in the way that he did was a disgrace, and it undermines the importance of the debate and the 20,000 young people sitting at home in my constituency, wanting to do what is best, but worried and anxious about what is going on. It is for those young people that I hope we all play our part in properly regenerating Tottenham, ensuring that there are opportunities and a growth strategy. We cannot have a constituency with the highest unemployment in London left to sink when bankers and others are bailed out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

I agree that the community wants to see lessons learnt and appropriate action taken. At the same time, I hope that the community feels that it was disproportionate for Wandsworth council, for instance, to proceed with the eviction of an 18-year-old—I will not mention his name, because I do not feel it appropriate—his mother and eight-year-old sister from their home in Battersea. That was a disproportionate response to the sins of the 18-year-old, who said:

“It’s not that I regret anything”—

personally, I think that he should regret a lot—

“but I am appalled that they’ve put”

his mother

“in this position because of me. She has nothing to do with this. These are the consequences of my actions, not hers.”

I agree entirely with the latter half of that quote.

[Gavin Barwell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I will give way once more, and then I must conclude.

[Gavin Barwell]

I do not wholly disagree with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, but if that 18-year-old repeatedly behaved antisocially in the area where he lived, surely the tenancy agreement into which his parent entered would state that that could be grounds for eviction? Ignoring the whole business of the riots, when one person in a family continually behaves in an antisocial fashion, that is clearly legitimate grounds for removing that family from their tenancy. On involvement in the riots, the key point, as I hope all Members can agree, is proportionality and whether the involvement was in the locality. If both those tests are met, that is reasonable grounds.

[Tom Brake]

It is about proportionality. We must all decide where the line in the sand must be drawn, but I add that the rest of the family were apparently involved in the local church and in volunteer groups. We all know from personal experience that sometimes it is necessary to take action against whole, dysfunctional families, but equally, in some families, one individual is completely out of control while the remainder of the family do their best to ensure that that individual does not act in that way.

We discussed youth services at some length during the debate earlier this week on gangs. The Government have a responsibility. Undoubtedly, we have decided to reduce budgets for local authorities, but equally, local authorities cannot hide behind that entirely when it comes to some of the decisions taken to withdraw excessively large percentages, or indeed all, of the funding available for youth services. Local authorities can exercise some degree of prioritisation, although I acknowledge that they must do so within a more restricted funding envelope.

It is also important for Government to ensure that the justice system treats children differently. It is important, even if we abolish the Youth Justice Board, that the justice system should still recognise that children are different and should be treated differently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

With the leave of the House, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I think that when my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), coming from their different perspectives, can agree on the need to diversify our police force, we are reminded that, sometimes, less separates us than we sometimes acknowledge in debates in the main Chamber.

I apologise to hon. Members who have sat patiently through the debate, but who have not had the chance to speak. I hope that the Government will reflect on the need for further debates on the issues. I want to thank the Government and the Minister in particular for his response, and for the work that he and the Mayor of London have done. A lot still remains to be done.

I want to end with a simple thought. If my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth will forgive me—everyone else who has spoken in the debate represents a London constituency—I will say that our city is a great city—in my opinion, the greatest in the world—but it still has profound problems. What happened in early August is a reminder of them. I want to end by saying thank you to the public servants who went above and beyond the call of duty to support Londoners over those few days, and to the residents of our city for the response that they have shown—that we will not allow what happened to set our city back, and that we will rebuild, and rebuild stronger. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate.

Question put and agreed to.