Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.

I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for giving me the opportunity to talk again about the county lines difficulties that we have in my constituency and elsewhere in the country. Much of the really violent crime and antisocial behaviour committed by young people in my patch is linked to the lines drug gangs. Just before Christmas, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, in which I had a number of asks, including a national strategy to end county lines criminal exploitation for good.

I became aware of county lines back in about 2015 or 2016. I was introduced to some mums of children who were being exploited. Have no doubt: those mums were amazing—they are courageous, strong and brave—and they showed me so much to enable me to understand what is happening in my constituency.

One of those women—I will call her Ashley—told me about her son, Kofi. When Kofi was 15, his neighbour started to build a relationship with him, and at first it all seemed okay. The neighbour was often to be found at Ashley’s house, watching TV and playing PlayStation. Slowly, however, Ashley realised that this man was turning her son away from school and away from her. Then, three days before Christmas, Kofi did not come home.

The next night Kofi called her, whispering. Some men had him—he did not know where he was and he was absolutely terrified. When Kofi finally returned, Ashley again called the police, and made him go to the police station, despite threats of violence against both of them. It was an extremely brave thing to do.

What Ashley told them, however, was ignored, and Kofi was treated as a criminal, not a victim. He was 15 years of age. The men who had groomed, exploited, traumatised and threatened him were, as far as Ashley knows, left alone, and no one came to check on Kofi afterwards to ensure that he was okay. Ashley told me that Kofi was never the same after that experience—his trust and hopes had been absolutely crushed. He had no support for his trauma, and the pattern continued.

A year later, Kofi was about to be accepted into the Army, to change his life for the better. But in that moment of hope, historical robberies were laid at Kofi’s door. Ashley believes it was because he was of an age to be sentenced as an adult. Ashley tells me she has seen Kofi’s groomers walking the streets, flashing the cash they made destroying children’s lives.

Five years ago, there was a bit of an excuse for not understanding what the lines were doing to our children; but there is no excuse now. The police, teachers and others have become more knowledgeable but, sadly, our response to the lines is still not based on evidence. The Government do not know how many children supervised by youth offending teams have gang memberships or criminal exploitation noted as an issue. The Government do not know how many of those known to children’s services have criminal exploitation as a risk factor, or how many slavery and trafficking prevention orders have been made to stop the exploitation of children. They do not know how many local safeguarding partnerships even have a child criminal exploitation strategy, let alone the effectiveness of those strategies.

It is only by having a real understanding of the complexity of the lines that we will make progress. We need our social workers and our police to be empowered to work with the people best able to reach the children in trouble. That means trusted community groups and charities who know their patch, but it means parents, too. The mums I have worked with over the years have been so very impressive in their dedication and perceptiveness about what has gone wrong. Social workers, police officers and even teachers sometimes have a bit of suspicious attitude towards the mums, and that has to change.

The Commission on Young Lives is working on this issue and will publish a report in the coming weeks. I want the Government to actively engage with it. If the Minister is able, I would like her to commit to meet me, Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society to talk about a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation ahead of the victims Bill. The role of a parent in a young person’s life is limited, especially once a groomer has got their hooks in them; but they are so often the best ally that we have, and they must be listened to and respected. Family has to be treated as part of the solution for preventing youth crime.

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[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Robertson; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing the debate, which has been interesting; I agreed with virtually everything he said. Antisocial behaviour has been trivialised, downplayed and dismissed in recent times. He said that we have a moral obligation to ensure that every child gets the opportunities they need to make the best of their life, that this is about more than just policing—it is about schools, local authorities and youth work—and that enough is enough. I think he will get a shock when he realises that his party has been in government for the last 11 years and has caused significant cuts that have driven a lot of the problems we face today.

I congratulate all hon. Members on their speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) talked about the impact of covid, which is really important in how we look at this issue. The hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) talked about youth workers and how important they are, and we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) just now about the impact of cuts to youth work across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) is such a fantastic campaigner on county lines and has been for a long time, and I add to her plea for the Government to look at the issue of defining child criminal exploitation. As it happens, an amendment calling for a definition is going through the House of Lords as we speak, so there is an opportunity in the Lords for the Government to support my hon. Friend’s cause, and we would welcome that.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) represents an interesting area; some good progress has been made on county lines in East Anglia. It is one of the only areas in the country where there has been some progress, but there is still a lot to be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) spoke about the wonderful police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, and the work she is doing. I was up there just before Christmas and worked with her; I went to St James’s Park and saw the wonderful youth work the football club is doing to try to ensure that people have opportunities. The hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) represents an important part of the country; a lot of the problems that are being debated now existed 20 years ago when I was working for Mo Mowlam.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) spoke movingly, as always, about the really big challenges we face with youth violence, which I have in my constituency as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) talked about those massively long waiting times. We cannot expect our young people to understand justice when the justice system does not work; it makes no sense and it cannot be done. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about council workers and the importance of tackling antisocial behaviour through local councils. Of course, our local councils have been absolutely decimated, so that is very difficult. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby told a personal story about how important youth work is. I think we all collectively agree with all of that.

I am pleased to follow so many good speeches. Since becoming an MP, I have spent five years campaigning against knife crime, and in my role as shadow Policing Minister I have been around the country in the past few months, looking at antisocial behaviour and seeing a lot of the issues. We can see how antisocial behaviour, which is defined as low-level but which I do not think is low-level at all, can spread and become more serious crime over time, exactly as hon. Members have said.

Everyone has a basic right to be safe in their community. Sadly, after the past 11 years our streets have become less safe. We have talked about prosecution rates; criminals are literally getting away with it under this Government. Only 6.5% of all crimes—a little over one in 20—lead to a prosecution, and the charge rate has halved over the past five years. Those figures are extraordinary. Criminals can pretty much get away with it.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

They have never had it so good.

[Sarah Jones]

Exactly. Whether people live in the city or in the country, they worry about their kids going out on the streets and getting into drugs. People can go online and buy any drug they want; on the “Today” programme only this morning, Claire Campbell spoke about her son, who died of an overdose after buying drugs online. There is a whole world of problems. Police struggle because they have to become social workers due to the impact of mental health cuts and the like. Serious organised criminals have got a real grip, and the UK is Europe’s largest heroin market—I think that statistic is extraordinary and shows how much work we have to do.

Antisocial behaviour is up 7% in the past year, with 1.8 million incidents recorded. To say that it is ignored by this Government is an understatement. There is no way of measuring the problem because it does not form part of the statistics under the Home Office’s counting rules. The way local authorities treat antisocial behaviour varies: some areas are good, while some are hopeless. I have made a series of freedom of information requests; I will not go into them all now, because they will come out shortly, but one council had 248 recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour and did 150 investigations, which resulted in no enforcement action whatever. Some boroughs really are struggling to do anything, and some are doing good things.

When I was going around the country, I saw a lot of good activity on antisocial behaviour. Rhyl was a particular favourite: for a start, there are more police community support officers on the street there, because the Welsh Government have funded more PCSOs over and above Government funding and they are crucial to preventing antisocial behaviour. There was a wonderful project with people you would describe as hoodlums out on the street, doing whatever they were doing. Youth workers went out to where they were, got involved with them and got them involved in sport. They took them up Snowdon, which was completely out of their comfort zone—they had not done anything like that before—and now they are doing their Duke of Edinburgh’s award. It was a complete transformation—how wonderful.

I went to see the Peel project in Hull. A park had become a horrible place for antisocial behaviour, with drug taking and kids hanging around, but the police gave a local organisation some shipping containers. It put a load of sports stuff in and based a little office in the park, and now the park is now a lovely place where people do sport and come together because there are adults, some structure and some things to do. It is not rocket science, but in so many places it is simply not done because the funding is not there.

Let me move on to youth crime. A 15-year-old boy, Zaian, was murdered in my constituency just before new year’s eve in the park I used to play in. On the same day, another boy became the 30th teenager to be murdered in London last year. Research from the organisation Crest shows that between 2014 and 2019 there was a 56% rise in knife possession offences for 10 to 17-year-olds, which is extraordinary. The organisation says that those who commit robbery and use weapons before the age of 18 are much more likely to have long criminal careers than young people who commit less serious crimes. Arrests of 10 to 17-year-olds make up a growing proportion of arrests for robbery—the statistics go on.

Anne Longfield, who was such a brilliant Children’s Commissioner, brought out a report this week that shows that spending on early intervention has reduced by almost two thirds over the past 10 years. What can we do with a third of what we had before? We know that these problems start young, and the Sutton Trust tells us that 1,000 family centres closed over the same period. Youth services were cut by about 40%—and by much more in some parts of the country—and the number of children given treatment by child and adolescent mental health services was massively reduced and they had to wait for long periods. We know what the problems are.

On top of that we can add the fact that we have so few police officers compared with what we need. Some 50% of PCSOs have been cut, and the Government have no plans to bring any of them back. We are still 10,000 short of the number of officers we used to have and, as was pointed out, a lot of officers are spending time doing other roles because of the cuts to police staff.

Labour says that there is nothing more important than keeping people safe, and we have a plan to provide new police hubs that will be visible in every community as a place where the public can go and talk to the police and other agencies in person. We will have new neighbourhood prevention teams to bring together the police, community support officers, youth workers and local authority staff to tackle crime. These teams would prioritise being visible and would pursue serial perpetrators of antisocial behaviour.

I appreciate that I need to end my speech, but I will just ask the Minister a series of questions. Will she consider bringing back the 50% of PCSOs we have lost? Will she speak to the request from the hon. Member for Stockton South for antisocial behaviour to be measured nationally in a better way? Will she address the request from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham for child criminal exploitation to become a priority, and will she look at tackling crime and antisocial behaviour with real force from the Home Office? The Home Office too often blames local police forces and does not provide leadership, and often it is not one step ahead of the criminals but one step behind. We need real leadership from the Home Office and cross-Government working to tackle these very significant and increasing problems.

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[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman so much for raising that. I strongly support that service with all my heart. I have seen how Street Pastors works effectively, especially in the night-time economy. We have debated violence against women and girls, and the Home Office has funded a number of such schemes and enabled local authorities to roll them out in their local areas.

Antisocial behaviour comes in various forms and guises. It differs from community to community, which is why it is important that there are flexible local powers that can be used, along with local knowledge of an area from local communities and the other agencies in it.

Members will be familiar with the changes that were made following the introduction of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. A number of tools and powers were introduced at that time. Some of those powers can be issued by a court, and they impose positive restrictions or requirements on an individual convicted of a criminal offence who has engaged in behaviour that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm and distress. One of those powers is a community trigger, which is a vital safety net. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South made a point about the burden of evidence on communities. I encourage him to come back to me to have a detailed discussion with my officials. We are very keen to hear how we can improve that so that these powers work effectively for his community and others.

I do not have a huge amount of time left. I want to focus my remarks on parenting orders, which Members have raised.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am really sorry, but I—

[Ms Brown]

I just want to get a commitment to a meeting.

[Rachel Maclean]

I will save the hon. Member the trouble; I will happily meet her. However, I want her to know that the Home Office is working with and funding the Children’s Society on many of the issues that she rightly touched on. Modern slavery is a vital part of the Government’s plan.

A parenting order is not the only way in which we can require families to engage with the authorities and tackle this behaviour at the source. Very often, youth offending teams work with parents on a voluntary basis. The experience is that parents often engage readily and take part in specific programmes, including parenting programmes, and that can have a very helpful, positive outcome. However, when that does not work, youth offending teams can ensure compliance and encourage engagement by issuing warning letters and using compliance panels. Consistent non-compliance without a good reason can lead to a police investigation and proceedings in court. Non-compliance may lead the court to issue a fine of up to £1,000, a probation order, a curfew order or an absolute or conditional discharge.

The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) raised county lines. I have a huge amount of respect for her, but unfortunately, she did not credit the work that has been going on nationally on county lines. I want to update her: since 2019, the police have closed more than 1,500 county lines, made over 7,400 arrests, seized £4.3 million in cash and drugs and safeguarded more than 4,000 people. Whatever party Members are from, I am sure that they can welcome that achievement.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am afraid I will not. I have such a lot to say and I have had less time than the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Croydon Central, and other Members.

We are investing £560 million in youth services in England over the next three years, including the youth investment fund, to transform the Government’s offer to young people and to level up opportunities right across the country. To kick-start the youth investment programme, an additional £10 million will be spent this year in key levelling-up areas to enable local youth providers, such as the ones that many Members have mentioned, to invest in projects and expand the reach, number and range of services that they currently offer. I think that we all agree that these types of crimes have complex roots, and they often go back generations. We must tackle the causes of crime as well as having the appropriate powers, enforcement and sentences.

I will touch briefly on the safer streets fund, as it is extremely relevant to many of the issues raised by Members. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South knows this, but may I remind him that Cleveland police have £366,289 from the safer streets fund, and that that project will carry out a variety of crime prevention measures, including 30 new or upgraded CCTV cameras, refurbishment of four alley gates and bespoke target-hardening measures for residents’ homes. It is these basic safety measures that can give confidence to communities that the presence and the security are there.

Overall, across the country, the Government have invested £70 million in the first three rounds of the safer streets fund. This financial year alone, the fund is supporting 107 local crime prevention projects to implement interventions such as improved street lighting, increased CCTV, increased presence of “guardians” to deter crime, and, pivotally, training to change attitudes and behaviours.

Most of these measures are set out in the Government’s beating crime plan. I encourage all Members to read the plan. It is a key manifesto commitment of this Government to get crime down and to set out how we will tackle crime and the causes of crime. It is a targeted approach to places, people and the business of crime underpinned by getting those basics right. The whole plan is supported by an unwavering commitment to the police that we will do everything in our power to combat crime and work out what actually works in keeping our country safe.

We are working with practitioners and experts who deal with this issue day in, day out. In a further strand, which is vital, we are working across the country with partners to establish principles for a strong and effective partnership response to antisocial behaviour. That is why we have undertaken the police and crime commissioner review to equip PCCs with the tools and levers that they need to drive down crime and antisocial behaviour in their areas. As I said at the start, we recognise the damage and distress caused by antisocial behaviour. We recognise the devastation to lives caused by youth crime, both to the perpetrators and the victims, and I am absolutely committed, as are my Home Office colleagues, to tackling this issue head-on.