Marcus Jones
Main Page: Marcus Jones (Conservative - Nuneaton)Department Debates - View all Marcus Jones's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right when he talks of the tragic deaths, lives being cut short, all those opportunities that are forever gone and the impact on those families. I think he was referring to the public health approach and asking why it would require a consultation. That is because it is supposed to be a statutory approach. We could have taken the non-statutory route. That would have been quicker, frankly, but I think it would have been less effective because I need every Department—colleagues have mentioned the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education—to make this a priority. We have talked about the experience in the other parts of the UK and in other countries. It has been a statutory approach. With very few exceptions, there is a requirement with such an approach to have a consultation to make sure it is legally watertight.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Warwickshire police are currently recruiting an additional 150 officers and extra officers are part of the solution here. My right hon. Friend has talked about a wider cross-Government approach and using resources of the whole of the Government. Can he say more about how we can get those resources and that approach down to the local level, where it is really going to make a difference?
Sajid Javid
I welcome the announcement by Warwickshire police. On other resources, a vital one that I mentioned earlier is support for organisations, mainly community organisations, to tackle the issue early on, through early intervention, especially to try to turn young people away from what might become a life of crime. The early intervention youth fund has already allocated funds to more than 20 projects, but the new youth endowment fund, which I said I would be publishing information on very shortly, will be allocating some £200 million very shortly to do just that work—early intervention.