Gangs

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. If a young person lives on the 15th floor of a tower block on one of my local estates, an after-school club is vital for their mother in seeking employment—if she is tempted to seek employment, who will take care of her child when school finishes? A breakfast club is essential if she has a cleaning job and Dad drives a minicab. In those circumstances, the young person getting to school early and getting a good breakfast is not an add-on; it is essential, but it is not clear that that is happening.

Let us examine the figures. Last year, knife crime rose by 8% in London. In addition, 43% of 11 to 13-year-olds and 50% of 14 to 16-year-olds said that knife crime and street violence were their No. 1 issue. Against that backdrop, we needed a youth offending service. We needed people to get to these young people early and work with them on intervention, prevention and persuasion. The service was developing, not mature, and was, in a sense, fairly new. I am alarmed that in the London borough of Haringey the budget has been cut by 50%.

In addition, some essential co-ordinated activity is not going on in a statutory way. Members of the voluntary sector often get together and debate these things, but it is not clear that there is any statutory obligation at all for the various services to be sat around a table, co-ordinating activities, profiling these young people and sharing intelligence.

Beyond the local authority, the activity that I have described is not happening London-wide. The border between Haringey and Hackney is porous, and the border between Haringey and Waltham Forest is porous. I am talking about co-ordinating intelligence. What is happening with these families? Which older brother went to prison last week? Which father found himself in trouble? Did domestic violence take place last week? It is essential that the various professionals have the ability to talk to one another and therefore know what is happening and or can predict what will happen, but that is not happening across London.

The Minister needs to examine that issue and needs to press the Mayor of London on it. There has been a lot of rhetoric and talk, but not a lot of action. The Mayor ran for office and won the election on the basis that he would reduce knife crime, so all of us must be very concerned that that is not happening. If anything, the problem has accelerated and got worse. Co-ordinated activity is essential. I am not saying that all this can be driven from the top, but it is possible to press for best practice, understand what is happening and see different professionals speaking to one another about those families and young people. That is not happening across London; it needs to happen, and much more purposefully. I hope that the Minister will say something about the youth offending services and teams that have been cut, and about what co-ordinated activity is planned across and beyond boroughs London-wide.

It is also clear to me that we are not sharing best practice and intelligence across the country, because I have been to other cities that are beginning to struggle with gang crime in their communities and they feel behind the curve in relation to some of the things that we have become familiar with in London.

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

It is important to put it on the record that there have been improvements in some statistics for some areas of serious crime, whether knife crime or gun crime, in recent years, although I accept that there is a tendency now to move in the wrong direction. We all know that just to bandy around statistics is not a sensible route forward. I very much take on board the idea that there needs to be far more co-ordination within London. The right hon. Gentleman referred to his own local authority perhaps being behind the curve compared with the neighbouring authority of Waltham Forest, which has put in place the Connect programme. It is important that, rather than getting into a sterile debate on statistics, which I accept happens on all sides in political discourse in London, we acknowledge that the Mayor and his predecessor have recognised the importance of dealing with gang crime and, in particular, the terrible statistics for knife and gun crime. Whether there is a slight reduction or not, any deaths that take place because of knife or gun crime are terrible tragedies, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The point I am making is that, two years ago, the assistant borough commander, the head of the youth service and her representatives, and representatives of social services, health services and schools were sat around the table—routinely, every month—discussing the group of young people who were getting caught up in this situation, and that funds were coming through to support that activity. I am afraid that they told me last week that that has ended. They are engaged—meeting voluntarily, every six weeks—because they are so concerned, but there is no statutory framework for that activity, and neither is there the support and diversion activity that needs to happen.

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate from his long experience that what those young people need is diversionary activity and intervention. That requires resources. If he speaks to colleagues in Waltham Forest—my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow might say something about this—he will hear that they are concerned about resources. I think that this is one area in which we can make the plea for resources, because the consequences of under-resourcing will cost us so much more. The co-ordination and resources that must rightly follow, so that those professionals can do their job, are essential.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on his speech. I will try to be brief. He is right to identify that the riots were, in essence, an example of opportunistic, rather than systematic, gang-related criminality. None the less, it is important that we discuss gangs, not least because we will have an opportunity in 48 hours to discuss, in this same Chamber, the riots in greater detail.

I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution. None of the issues is open to a simplistic analysis or easy solution. It is perhaps the nature of the 24/7 media world in which we live that that expectation always exists. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, there was a sense that we should have some quick and easy solutions, but I think that the lesson is that, much as I accept his call to arms and passionate push for urgency, we also have to be patient. This needs systematic work within our communities to try to make sure that we break down the culture of violence and criminality, as well as the entirety of gang culture.

I am very much a sound money man. I have been a great believer in getting our deficit down and have tried in my own constituency, almost uniformly, not to make the case for more money to be pushed in a particular direction. I am, however, aware of gang culture in my own constituency and in the past few days I have written to the Home Secretary to make the case for moneys that would otherwise be taken away from Westminster city council to be put in its direction. There is a bigger issue of gang culture in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). The terrible shooting that took place on the Mozart estate only a week ago was a classic example of that.

In my constituency, the Churchill Gardens estate is not too far from where we sit this morning and there is increasingly great concern that it has almost a critical mass of would-be gang culture that has the potential to cause great blight to the locality. A lot of it is driven by the postcode war, with gangs from north and south of the river—the Churchill Gardens estate looks out towards Battersea and the south of London. There is real concern that we need to put some resource into prevention rather than cure.

I accept what the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said earlier. One of the greatest difficulties is that the lifestyle has almost become chaotic and that it is difficult to wean people off. I also noticed that she raised her eyebrows when the right hon. Member for Tottenham suggested that gang culture was not an issue in 2000 when he became an MP. It has been a problem, although I think that there is now a critical mass in parts of London that used to feel unaffected by it. One of the interesting things about the riots was how previously quiet suburbs, such as Clapham and Enfield, which were perhaps regarded as leafy suburbs not too far away from some of the gangland areas of south London, Edmonton or Walthamstow, suddenly became subject to some real problems. That is something that we have to bear firmly in mind.

As I have said, this will require patient, time-consuming activity. The St Andrew’s club, of which I am proud, as the local Member of Parliament, to be president, is even closer to us than the Churchill Gardens estate; it is within 500 yards of Parliament. It was the oldest boys’ club and is now a boys and girls’ club. A phenomenal amount of resource was put in to ensure that there were sports clubs and teams. There are also opportunities for dance and music lessons.

The club desperately requires funding. The local authority is not able to give it the funds it has had in recent years. We have tried to build up a trust, so that relatively wealthy people living nearby are able to put in money. It is helpful—not so much in keeping people off the streets, although that is one distinct element of it—and its catchment area goes well beyond the immediate vicinity of Westminster. The clubs that it puts in place go south of the river.

That opportunity for distraction, provided by clubs in particular, is, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham said, something that we middle-class parents can often provide for our children almost as a matter of course, without recognising that for many others costs and more general factors make the opportunity much more limited. I hope that in such areas we can try to wean people off gang culture, although it is extremely difficult. Even if there were a direct economic choice between a job and the attraction of cheap and easy money, compatible with a chaotic lifestyle, it would be difficult to wean many long-standing gang members away. Aspiration is an issue: paucity of aspiration and of expectation.

I want to finish with one other observation. I do not want to play down the importance of the issues. I have a feeling that, although we have not had to worry about gang culture in my constituency, we may go beyond the critical mass in a year or two, if we do not nip things in the bud today. However, we must also recognise there are many unsung, relatively quiet young men and women in our communities, doing a phenomenally good job. They work hard and have developed aspirations. Perhaps it is self-discipline that has brought that about, rather than anything from their family. They are unsung heroes and I hope that they will play their part in improving their communities in years to come. It is important that we should not look on young people as simply problematic. We can be proud of them, while we do our level best to tackle the problems addressed in the debate.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on opening the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on initiating it. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) would also like to take part, but she cannot be here today.

Lewisham is by and large a safe place to live. People generally get on with one another. Children play in our parks, and I shall walk home from the station tonight without fear. I mention that because my experience of Lewisham is probably different from that of some of my younger constituents, who have seen the lives of friends and family devastated by serious youth violence. My perception of Lewisham is probably different from that of local parents who are worried about the safety of their children. In the past four years, there have been 67 incidents of known gang-related crime in the borough, four of which resulted in someone dying. In the same period, there were 673 instances of gun and knife crime, and 17 people were killed. I do not quote those figures to sensationalise; I do it so that everyone will be clear about the scale of the problem.

In the past few months, since the riots, gangs seem to be back on the Government’s agenda. Whether the subject is a cross-departmental taskforce to look at ways to deal with gang culture, or extensions to gang injunctions, Ministers want to talk about gangs. It is all very well to be interested in gangs now, but with the exception of Brooke Kinsella’s report last year and the announcement in February of some ring-fenced funding to tackle gang, gun and knife crime, the Government have been dangerously slow off the mark in addressing the challenges posed by gangs and gang violence.

Last September, in an Opposition-day debate, I urged the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice to look at ways of tackling material that appears on the internet glorifying gang membership and the carrying of knives. Video after video, filmed in a car park in Catford in the heart of my constituency, is put on YouTube. They are often viewed as many as 16,000 times. Young men, or perhaps I should say boys, brandish knives in front of the camera as if they were cigarettes. I wrote to the Minister two days after the debate, providing him with an example of the footage and asking what action the Home Office would take. In November I wrote again, chasing a reply. In January I spoke to him after he appeared before the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, but to date I have not had any response to my inquiries; so when the Government talk tough on gangs and want to find someone and something to blame for the riots, I cannot help but wonder why they did not do more to address the sort of problems that many of us were bringing to their attention long before the riots.

If I am honest, I do not know what the Government can do to tackle the problem of online material such as the videos that I have described, but I fear that, if thousands of young people have viewed that footage and think that it is in some way cool, it would not be at all surprising if some of them also got caught up in thinking that some of the agitators in the riots were pretty cool, too.

[Mr Mark Field]

The hon. Lady complains that the Government and perhaps the current Mayor of London have not produced the goods, as she would have liked, but it is only fair to mention that, in the past few years, 10,000 knives and guns have been taken off the street, in a widespread amnesty, and we have also ensured that there are an additional 1 million police patrols per year on the streets of London. It is also fair to say that that builds on what happened under Mayor Livingstone, but the trajectory has been in that direction: we have continued some of the important work done in our capital city in the past decade.

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman acknowledged in his speech that in recent years there has also been an upward trajectory. He urged patience, and I am not sure that patience is possible in this situation, because young people are being killed and maimed on our streets. We need to tackle the situation urgently.

I have spoken about my frustration in trying to get the Government to examine the big issues, and I urge the Minister to update us on the conversations that he has had with companies such as YouTube about how, when the police know such videos are out there, they may perhaps be enabled to get that material taken down.

Having spoken about online manifestations of gangs, I want to turn to some of the wider action that is needed if we are to deal with a problem that blights the lives of too many young people in big cities. Yesterday, I visited XLP, a youth work charity based in my constituency. Its founder, Patrick Regan, is the author of “Fighting Chance: Tackling Britain’s Gang Culture”. I urge the Minister and all hon. Members who are present to read it. It is a powerful and enlightening contribution to the debate about why young people are involved in gangs, what solutions are needed and, indeed, what solutions work. Anyone who reads the book will realise that there is no magic wand to be waved to tackle the problem of gang violence. What is clear is the fact that any gang strategy must address all aspects of the problem. We must seek to understand the reasons behind gang involvement and, equally, why most kids do not get involved. Let us be clear: the vast majority of kids, even on some of the most challenging estates, are not involved.

To put it simply, if we are to tackle the problem of gangs, we must find a way to get those who are now in gangs out of them; we need to help those who are in prison as a result of being in gangs not to return to gangs when they come out; and we must help those who are caught up in gang violence to deal with their anger in different ways. Often, retaliation and reprisals lead to an escalation of violence. How do we stop things getting worse at that stage? Most importantly, we must prevent people from getting involved in the first place.

What should we do? My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham is completely right to talk about jobs. I have said before that young people in my constituency stop me in the street and say, “What are you going to do to help me get a job?” If young people do not have real opportunities, we will not reach a situation where they do not see involvement in gangs as the easy, quick-win solution. However, we need to do other things, such as getting youth-led projects into schools when young people are at the right age, so we can make it clear to them that, if they carry a knife, it could end up injuring them. We need to provide young people with accessible role models, who are in it for the long haul, giving the support and encouragement that may be missing in other parts of a young person’s life. We need to ensure that the one-to-one mentoring and encouragement that a young person in a pupil referral unit might need are available, and can be funded. We need to give confidential support to young people who present themselves at an A and E department with a stab wound, so that they can find a way out of some of the problems. As I have said before, we need to work with those who are in prison to give them a fulfilling life to get away from gangs on their release.

When I spoke to staff at XLP yesterday, I asked them what the Government should do to tackle the problem of gangs. They were clear in their response: jobs, a better balance between enforcement and engagement, and funding of initiatives that have been proven to work. XLP gets £10,000 a year from the Home Office. It has a track record in delivery, going into schools and doing the things that I have talked about. It is changing young people’s lives; it is probably saving their lives.

I say this to the Government: take the millions of pounds that they plan to spend on police and crime commissioners and invest the money in community-led projects that are already tackling gang and knife crime. Young lives are being lost in some of our big cities because of the violence associated with gangs. That has to stop. Talking tough is not going to solve the problem. A proper, thought-out and credible strategy, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said, might give us a fighting chance of tackling some of the problems, and I implore the Minister to set out what the Government are going to do.