Public Disorder

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords, I want to raise two issues and I hope that the Minister will respond to them when she answers. She will hear the two questions in my brief comments. The first relates the difficulties experienced by the police in controlling the riots. If the police cannot do it, vigilante groups will. Nature abhors a power vacuum. Can we be assured that the broader question of resourcing of the police should not be too glibly tied up with current plans for cuts in public expenditure? The public need to be assured that first things come first: the peace of the realm. Will the Minister assure us that that will be the case, and that police resources are not subject to some false principle of equal sharing of burdens among government departments? I hope that will not be the case.

An under-resourced police will always be a brutal and insensitive police. Will the Government assure us that they are going to create a structure that will enable the police not to be hindered either by excessive bureaucracy or by a suggestion that they are not capable of doing it? What hinders our liberty is not necessarily the police but other people. If there is a clear framework for the police to work within, we will all have our liberty.

Will the Government also assure us that they will protect the police and us by investigating complaints against the police thoroughly and conscientiously? The Independent Police Complaints Commission was suggested by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. How can it be nimble and transparent and deliver on time, every time? Will they assure us how that will happen?

My second question relates to the motivation of the young people involved in the riots. I think noble Lords will agree that it would be foolish to shoot off quick-fire opinions on what brought them on to the streets. We must understand what is going on, which is not the same as condoning what has gone on. It is very easy to understand a little less and condemn a little more but that will not deliver safety. We need to understand; if we do not, we will never resolve the problems.

Some clear questions must be asked. Will the Government encourage—

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

We are meant to ask questions.

[The Archbishop of York]

The question is in my statement.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

We are running out of time.

[The Archbishop of York]

It is coming, sir. If everyone appreciates what my colleague, the most reverend Primate of all England, has said, what are we going to do in terms of culture? The Secretary of State for Education has said that religious knowledge will not be part of the English Baccalaureate, but religious knowledge forms and creates a culture.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, first, we will have a couple of thousand of these people at our disposal for a year or so. Can we please have some proper academic research, using them, into the whys and wherefores? This is a new phenomenon for us. We really ought to try to understand it; this is an opportunity that we should not miss.

Secondly, as a resident of Battersea, this week it was immensely distressing that the police station 100 yards away from the centre of disturbance did not produce anybody for the first hour and a half of what was going on. As the noble Lord, Lord Dear, said, we need to look at that. It is totally unacceptable that that should be the service that the businesses and people of Battersea had.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, if concerns over the publication of photographs are to be set aside, as the Prime Minister said in his Statement, can we have a national review of the guidelines on pixelation of CCTV, which has been a growing tendency in recent years?

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, have the redeeming features of the terrible events been not only the dignified stoicism of men such as Tariq Jahan, but the way in which community organisations such as Toxteth Against the Riots have held together and stood on their own streets, defending their own territory? Thirty years ago, when I was a Member of the House of Commons representing an inner-city Liverpool constituency, that city was disfigured by riots. In the aftermath, the Government appointed Lord Scarman to investigate those events. I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said earlier. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, will not rule out the possibility—above and beyond the committee of inquiry to be established in another place—of someone of Lord Scarman’s standing looking at the deep and complex issues involved here. In that context, will they particularly look at the crisis of values and virtues; at the flaccid language of rights, which has pushed to one side the idea of duties, obligations and responsibilities; and at the issue of absent fathers? Eight hundred thousand children in this country have no contact with their fathers. The Times, in an editorial today, says that some 900 children are excluded from school every day. As parents, we have to be on the side of teachers. We must re-establish discipline in our schools. If we do not, it will not be what we have seen this week that will come back to haunt us; it will be far worse events in the future.