The Riots

Mark Field Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[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.

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[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend raises an important and complex issue. I hope she will understand that so as to keep my remarks brief I will not go into detail, although she may wish to refer to it in her speech. It is clearly problematic if an attempt to use tenancy law is applied to a wider range of people, including the family of the tenant in question, who have to respond in relation to a particular criminal activity perpetrated by one individual. That area requires thoughtful, rather than knee-jerk, reactions.

[Mr Mark Field]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

rose—

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[Mr Lammy]

Before the Division, I was talking about community policing—its successes, but also a breakdown that I think happened in this case. A Trident operation was taking place in Tottenham Hale in my constituency. It is not clear at this stage what that operation was about or why it chose to enter into what led to firearms being discharged in a busy traffic area at the height of commuter time on the Thursday evening before the riots.

I am deeply concerned that many London MPs—indeed, MPs across the country—have got used to a scenario in which they tend to be more comfortable with local police with local intelligence and connections. However, if police come into their area for any kind of operation, they are far more nervous. Often, when things do not go according to plan, that involves officers coming into the area. In looking at the matter—I know that there are several inquiries—we need to reflect on how operations beyond a local area can use local knowledge and intelligence. I do not know the circumstances of the operation or why it took place, but clearly it led to the death of Mark Duggan.

[Mr Mark Field]

I accept some of the concerns that the right hon. Gentleman has put into mind. We all appreciate in London that community policing needs to be by consent, and there were clearly issues in the case. However, another aspect of communication was lacking in the Tottenham case, something he might come on to.

A deep concern for many of us present is that, almost at a mendacious level, the Metropolitan police, through its communications department, put out only part of the story. The rumour that went round was that there had been an exchange of fire, which clearly was not the case. If that had been an isolated incident, we might have put it to one side, but as we all know, there were similar issues regarding the death of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005. That is a deep concern, beyond the usual suspects of those who might be concerned about police behaviour. There is a sense that, all too often, the police try to get across a communication with a spin approach in relation to activities in which tragic deaths occur. That all too often begins to unravel rapidly, with the terrible results that we saw in August.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. With great sadness, I say that, for the first time in many years, there is a strong sense of “them and us” in communities such as the one I represent. It seems that the Metropolitan police is unable not to close ranks or not see briefings on a particular incident filter out before the facts have been properly and independently assessed. Of course, for those who were looking on at the incident—this was in a place with busy traffic, and many people were in the local area—the account that they picked up in the initial radio and television broadcasts and the papers the next day did not accord with what they themselves had seen. Immediately, in the hours that followed, there was a trust deficit and a breakdown of the sense of policing by consent, whereby the community and the police work side by side and recognise that, in any organisation, things can and do go wrong, and individuals can make the wrong judgment. Of course, I do not pass judgment on what happened.

Then we had the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has sought to apologise for its press office briefing in which it was said that Mark Duggan had fired a gun. It turned out that that statement was wholly premature and wholly untrue. My community needs to believe in the IPCC after the catastrophe that was the Police Complaints Authority. Mistakes such as that statement are catastrophic for that trust.

All of us who are parents know that feeling when our children leave the house: we have this paranoid sense that something is going to go wrong and we think: “They are not going to come back. Somebody is going to knock on my door.” Every parent who experiences the death of a child deserves a better service. The fact that things did not happen in the appropriate way is surely something that shames us all. This family found themselves stuck in the middle. The local police say, “It is not our responsibility. We have to back off now.” The national organisation says, “Is this our responsibility? Are we meant to do this?” The following day, after the liaison has not gone appropriately, people find out from the television what has happened, and rumours begin to circulate because of a disjunction between what communities saw and what is being briefed and said. There is a peaceful protest outside the police station, which is not unusual in the context of my constituency and other constituencies in London when someone dies following police contact. The appropriate senior officer is not there. It takes some time to get someone there, then answers are not forthcoming in the way the family expect and want. We know what happens as a consequence.

The Metropolitan police understand that there must be an inquiry on the matter to see what led up to the riots. The IPCC is also inquiring into those initial few hours and what role they played. The consequence of the actions has been huge.

I, too, have sat with the deputy borough commander and looked at the footage of what took place in Tottenham on that night—that was at my request. The scenes that I saw were some of the most depressing I have ever witnessed. I have sat with families who have been victims of knife crimes and I have done some inquest cases that involved some horrific things, but the scenes that I saw were depressing. I expected to see anger and frustration on the faces of some of those who were attacking Tottenham high road, but instead I saw joy and happiness. That is why it was so depressing.

I was categorical in my condemnation of what we saw in Tottenham on that Saturday night and Sunday morning. There can be no excuse whatever for the large-scale arson that we saw in London. The fact that no one is dead as a consequence is truly amazing. We saw 56 properties burn to the ground and 50 families lost their homes and all their possessions. Young children are still experiencing nightmares as a consequence of what happened and independent shopkeepers, the vast majority of whom have migrated to this country, again face financial ruin as a consequence of riots. That is totally unacceptable. People who get up every single day to go to work had their businesses burned to the ground. I caution those who rush to make excuses for this kind of behaviour because it is wholly unacceptable and we must remain firm on the choice that people have to make.

We had a debate earlier this week about some of the underlying causes of gun violence. I remember a difficult period in the late 1970s and early 1980s when young people such as me had a choice about whether to get caught up with the mob. I made my choice back then and I stand by it now. I will not, 25 years later, change my mind about the difference between right and wrong when it leads to such loss for ordinary, decent, hard-working people. The attack on the community and the police was ferocious. I saw scenes on the video that looked a bit like Grand Theft Auto. Young people were lining up trolleys to barricade themselves away from the police. Extinguishers were thrown at the police and a gun was pulled on them. We saw people casually setting fire to buildings.

When I was rung by the police on the Saturday evening and told that a car was burning outside the police station, my first response was to wonder why the car was left in the way that it was by the police. I then hoped that the fire would be put out quickly. A second car was set on fire, then a bus was set alight. I wondered why the initial policing was not there, because Spurs were playing and there was a huge police presence in the area.

What took place across the rest of the country in the days ahead was mirrored in the London borough of Haringey. The Tottenham retail park was looted for hours and no police were present. When the manager of Comet showed me the photographs and the CCTV footage of what took place, it was clear that there were more people in his shop that night than are ever there during the day. Although the lights were off, it was like Christmas day because the lights from people’s mobile phones could be seen. People were looking for goods and helping themselves. The place had nothing left in it by morning, and that is one of the biggest and most successful Comets in the country. We do not need to talk about JD Sports; that had the same image in the Tottenham retail area. Wood Green, one of our important shopping areas in north London, was totally ransacked for hours and hours.

What happens when good, hard-working people who live in those areas see no policing? Bad news is the consequence. Young teenagers who may never have been involved with the police get caught up. The same is true of those who are in their 20s, which was the profile of many of those who were arrested. This cannot be the formula for proper policing by consent. As MP for Tottenham, I understand the consequences and issues of that night. I have to raise million of pounds to regenerate the area. Who will provide that money?

I am pleased, of course, that the Mayor of London has allocated initial funds for the riot area, but the irony is that the two areas of London that were bidding to become enterprise zones were Croydon and Tottenham. The reason that we spent most of last year fighting each other to get an enterprise zone, and demanding of the Mayor that we get one, is that the scale of regeneration necessary in Tottenham, even before the riots, was on a par with that in other parts of the country that have seen far greater regeneration. I am talking about Salford and parts of Manchester, parts of Birmingham and the Olympic area. Tottenham will need a far bigger story than the neighbourhood renewal that is being proposed. I believe that the community in Tottenham deserves that regeneration. We need jobs. I need the other half of the BBC. I need some major back-office Departments or quangos. Tottenham deserves that, Edmonton deserves it and the wider north-east London area deserves it. I hope that the community will now get it.

[Katy Clark in the Chair]

There has been some suggestion that if Spurs stay in the local area and renew their ground, that will be enough. Of course it will not be enough. I want Spurs to stay in the area, but a football club cannot possibly be the anchor of regeneration in an area that is struggling so much, such as Tottenham. There are big questions about the policing, and therefore about what the regeneration response will be as a result of the damage that was caused.

I want to raise a couple of other issues in relation to the broader issue of policing with consent. The first is that I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to police with consent if the police do not reflect and look like the community that they serve. I hope that hon. Members will understand that I am not talking now in a sort of old-fashioned, socialist, equal opportunity kind of way. I am talking about pragmatic policing and how to police a busy urban area. It cannot be acceptable that, despite the advances that have been made, we have 32,441 police officers in the Met and only 867 of them are from a black or black British background. Just 4.7% of the police officers in the country are from ethnic minorities.

We all know London and we all recognise that there are boroughs in London, such as my own, where more than half the people in the community are from an ethnic minority background. If we are not to walk down the road that America has walked down—with armed police—and if we are to maintain our model of policing with consent, what does that consent really feel and look like? And how can we accelerate this process? It will take a lot more than good will and fine rhetoric. It will take some serious, positive action to get a move on with the kind of numbers that we now need if we are to protect the integrity of a police force that does not routinely carry guns.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I will endeavour to follow your strictures, Ms Clark.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on securing this important debate, and I want to say that it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who so effectively articulates his community’s frustrations about what happened there.

I wish to use this opportunity to again express my condolences to all those who lost loved ones in the rioting. The rioters’ behaviour was unacceptable and without justification, much of it driven by gratification, or greed—the right hon. Member for Tottenham said that he saw smiling faces during the events. Much of the rioting was conducted with total disregard for people’s safety. I had the chance to visit Croydon shortly afterwards, and the arsonists there clearly had no regard whatever for the people living above the shops to which they chose to set fire. They had absolutely no idea whether people were in the flats, and I hope that they are severely dealt with.

I commend the performance of individual officers and of the emergency services generally. I am sure that Members will have received briefings from a range of organisations. The Local Government Association briefing refers to the London fire brigade’s receiving nearly 2,200 calls from the Monday to the Tuesday of the riots, which was about 15 times its usual rate. The fire brigade had to attend fires in many places around London; the clear intention of the arsonists was to draw the brigade in, with the police to back it up, so that they could then move on to commit their crimes elsewhere.

I commend also the work of local authorities, many of which responded immediately and were able to clear up the damage to such an extent that people walking through the streets the following morning were not so aware of what happened the night before and, finally, I commend my local police. My borough commander, who is about one year from retirement, never expected to be leading a baton charge down Sutton’s High street. He effectively dispelled those who intended to cause trouble in our town centre.

Many aspects of what happened rightly need to be subjected to scrutiny. The right hon. Member for Tottenham mentioned the initial incident involving Mark Duggan and its handling by the Metropolitan Police Service and the IPCC. I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to say more about that incident because it is under investigation, but one aspect of it that distresses me is that there does not seem to have been a great appreciation of the history in Tottenham. That history seems to have escaped many of the parties that one would have thought would have been aware of it and more sensitive to the need to deal with the matter very carefully.

The availability of officers with level 2 public order training needs to be looked into. In London, just four groups of 18 officers are trained to deal with this type of incident. The Met also needs to look at scenario planning. It was clear that the service was not set up to deal with this number of incidents, or with this scale of disturbance. I am sure that lessons will be learnt about how it can ramp up the number of officers much more quickly. I say that with the benefit of hindsight. I do not think that the Met or anyone else could have anticipated what would happen on that first night and in the days that followed.

There are also lessons to be learnt about gangs. Perhaps I was guilty at the beginning of saying that there was heavy gang involvement; the figures suggest that it was only 13%. Perhaps the G8 anarchists were the main instigators, but we will find that out only later. Perhaps they were involved in, or responsible for, the most serious violence.

I welcome the Government response as it stands, with the £20 million allocated by the Department for Communities and Local Government to help recovery and regeneration. I know, having seen the impact in Croydon and reflected on how many different parties will have to agree to work together quickly and effectively, including the local authorities, the insurance companies and businesses affected, that great commitment and co-operation will be required. If that work does not happen quickly, some people will walk away from their businesses, particularly those who have costs. I was talking to a dry cleaner who said that £70,000 was needed simply to buy the equipment again, so swift action is needed.

On the criminal justice response, I have written to the Secretary of State for Justice to see what lessons were learnt about how the courts responded. They responded quickly, but there have been concerns that they did not get the information they needed, such as probation reports. Was that the case? There may be lessons to be learnt about courts operating overnight, although, as I understand it, magistrates who are volunteers may not be enthusiastic about the prospect of working through the night as a matter of course.

On the criminal justice response, as I have stated already, serious crimes were committed and they will receive serious sentences. The riots were an aggravating factor but, in my view, some of the sentences were still disproportionate. Members will know the case of Ursula Nevin, a mother of two children, who was sentenced to five months in prison for handling stolen goods, although she was not personally involved in the riots. The appeal judge in that case clearly felt that the sentence was disproportionate, the aggravating factor of the riots notwithstanding. One consequence, according to UNICEF, is that the child prison population has risen by 8% since the riots, which is of concern to us all. Of those charged, 65% were remanded in custody, whereas normally only about 10% are.

An opportunity was missed to use restorative justice as part of the rehabilitation revolution. It would have been an appropriate response to force low-level offenders to sit down with victims, if the victims wanted it, in order to apologise and make reparations for what they did. Restorative justice is effective. Home Office research shows that it leads to a 14% reduction in reoffending, which we all want. It could also have been an opportunity for intensive community sentences. Projects were set up under the previous Government, and I hope that they will be evaluated, as I believe that they will prove at least 10% more effective than short-term prison sentences in reducing reoffending. Again, if we are serious about reducing reoffending and reducing the number of victims in the longer term, we must consider such measures.

On restorative justice and community sentences, in the words of the chief inspector of prisons, it stands to reason that someone paying back to the community on a supervised scheme, and someone who has to pay bills and behave responsibly, is more likely to go straight than someone locked up and sleeping through their sentence. The Government intend, rightly, to ensure that prisoners cannot sleep through their sentence and are encouraging work in prisons, but that is a long-term ambition on which we are working.

On the local authority response, I thought that today’s debate would involve a stronger push for eviction of tenants and withdrawal of benefits. Some speakers, particularly one speaker who may come after me, may push that agenda, but we will see. On the eviction of tenants, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) rightly pointed out that some anomalies will be involved. One anomaly that he did not mention is that, if a private owner-occupier was involved in the riots, they cannot be evicted from their property, so distinguishing between tenants and private owners is a challenge. Also, there are problems associated with evicting tenants for offences committed in their area but not tenants who committed offences in other areas.

[Mr Mark Field]

I suspect that most of that would fall foul of human rights legislation, which will not be removed from the statute book any time soon. However, there is a fundamental distinction between a private tenant and a tenant of a local authority, in terms of the responsibility that a local authority has to act on behalf of all local residents. Although I accept the grave concerns expressed by the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), do they not see that the community out there feel strongly that lessons must be learnt? If we do not use a range of different tools to make it clear how much the incidents have distressed the community, the perpetrators will be seen to have got away with it.

[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.

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

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), I watched the dreadful and, at times, terrifying scenes of disorder that took place in so many of London’s shopping centres. My first thoughts were often with the business owners whose livelihoods had been destroyed. Those very hard-working folk are supporting not only families, but our neighbourhoods. They are often the very glue of our local communities and deserve not only our deepest sympathy, but the fast-track help that has been promised by the Government, which I hope they have already received in relation to insurance claims and the like. If there is any problem with that, I hope we will be made aware of it, so that we can collectively do our best on their behalf.

As a father bringing up two young children in central London, I fervently hope that families living in the areas that were directly affected by the riots will not give up on this wonderful city. I love London—not just the historic six square miles that make up my constituency, but the collection of villages that have spawned a whole range of suburbs that most Londoners know only from a cursory glance at the tube map. Those are the districts I love to walk through because their variety and communities never cease to amaze me.

Coincidentally, it was only four days before the riots began that I ambled from the City of London in my constituency through Hoxton and Haggerston and into central Hackney, Clapton, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington. It was a hot summer’s day as I walked down Clarence road. With all its lovely little bistros, that street is very unlike the common perception of Hackney. I walked down Mare street and to the edge of the churchyard of St John’s, Clapton. Little did I imagine how, within a few days, the area would turn into a front-line riot zone televised across the UK and the world.

To pick up on one or two other contributions, many of the areas affected by the riots have changed beyond recognition in the 30 years since the race riots of the 1980s. Huge investment has taken place in the public realm and gentrification has progressed apace, while the ethnic and cultural mix has been transformed. I am not naive enough to suggest for one moment that certain parts of the areas that were subject to the riots do not have some deep-seated problems. However, the sense that, for example, Hackney is some sort of lawless ghetto enveloped in hopelessness is well short of the mark, as the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) rightly pointed out.

I am afraid that a lot of what happened was opportunistic criminality. I am slightly concerned not about the idea that the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 should be invoked—of course it should be invoked—but about the idea that the police should get full compensation back. There needs to be an incentive for the police to do their best to maintain law and order, even in some of the most difficult circumstances. If the Metropolitan police were to have full reimbursement of the £300 million concerned, there would not necessarily be an incentive for it to act rapidly if such events occurred in the future. For many people, the most terrifying thing was the sense of utter lawlessness, particularly in areas around Clapham Junction and Lavender Hill. It was interesting that when one heard people being interviewed, there were young yuppies saying, “What the hell is going on?” The whole place had been enveloped by opportunistic criminality.

There is so much more I would have liked to say today. I shall talk a bit about youth violence specifically in my area of Westminster, which thankfully was a part of London that was not particularly badly affected, apart from on a slightly ad hoc basis. The local authority is doing what it can and I want to put some of that work, which I hope will be emulated in other parts of London, on the record.

It is right not to consider the issue to be entirely a youth problem but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) rightly pointed out, we must consider early intervention. As we know, the Government have pledged to tackle some 120,000 problem families before the next election. We should not necessarily be wholly driven by such targets but, none the less, I hope that that figure will focus minds. Inevitably, local authorities will be at the forefront of local solutions to meet that challenge.

In the last full year, 2010-11, Westminster saw a 49% increase in serious youth violence incidents, rising from 197 to 309 incidents. Already, we have seen 133 incidents for the first few months of this financial year. Under the leadership of the cabinet member for children, young people and community protection, Nickie Aiken, pioneering work is being done on tackling gangs, so that the problem is nipped in the bud. Only 48 hours ago in this Chamber, we had a discussion on that issue. It was rightly pointed out that, for too many young gang members, gangs are a surrogate family because they are often living in very chaotic households, which thankfully are alien to the experience of probably all of us here today. In Westminster, we have developed a “Your Choice” programme, which builds on the principles of early intervention, information sharing and personal responsibility.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that family intervention is key to dealing with the matter and that those programmes work because they take in the whole family together, look at the root cause of the problem and try to find a long-term solution?

[Mr Field]

Very much so. The pure economics of the matter show that if you can reach that small number of families, huge amounts of money can be saved. Otherwise, if we do not reach those families, there are wasted lives that will be put to shame.

The focus of the “Your Choice” programme is on having key transition stages from primary to secondary school. However, it has also developed targeted gang exit programmes, cross-border gang mediation to try to break down the postcode rivalry that lies at the bottom of many of the problems surrounding gang culture in London, and support to get young people into sustained employment and training. We all appreciate how difficult that is, and I fear it will be for some time to come as elements of the economy continue to deteriorate. We also need intensive support to be given to parents and families in the holistic way that my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) described.

We want to try to provide families with a real choice: take the services on offer and become real members of the community, or face a range of enforcement options. That choice is based on evidence of what works, including tried and tested programmes in Westminster, such as the successful gang exit programme. Only 5% of youngsters on that programme received a conviction compared with 42% before the strategy began.

[Meg Hillier]

Does the hon. Gentleman have any experience of gang injunctions in his constituency? We have had great difficulties getting them to work in Hackney. Has he had any conversations with people in his borough or with other Ministers about them?

[Mr Field]

We have not had any in my constituency. As I mentioned the other day, one of the issues surrounding the Churchill Gardens estate in my constituency is the worrying sign that we are getting close to a tipping point and that the gang problem will become much more intense than in certain parts of the northern end of the borough, which the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) represents. That is clearly not something I am entirely aware of.

I appreciate that other hon. Members want to speak, so I will just say a couple more things. It is important to recognise that turning around the lives of what are regarded as problem young people and families takes time, patience and, inevitably, resources. All too often, local authorities have to rely on one-off funding pots, which often fail to deliver an impact or may deliver that impact only in the very short term, with the problem ultimately reoccurring before too long.

The programme that Westminster is trying to develop requires a sustainable funding stream to ensure that the council can intervene early and support young people to make the right choices in their lives. If we can secure sustainable funding, we will aim to intervene early and support children as young as the age of five through that programme. Westminster city council has secured funds to deliver the bulk of the programme for the current tax year, but it wants to be able to deliver a sustainable programme over three to five years. I have made representations on that and, as I mentioned the other day, I am someone who believes in getting the deficit down and who has tried their level best to recognise that that means not standing up, even at a constituency level, for programmes when cuts are being made. This is probably the only exception. We need to look at the provision of youth services. If we are to have a genuine long-term impact, one of the legacies of trying to ensure that the riots do not happen again must be that we examine those services.

In Westminster—I am sure this is replicated in all London boroughs and, indeed, in boroughs outside the capital represented by hon. Members here today—we have had a substantial reduction of some £828,000 from the funding of our youth services as a result of the emergency Budget in June 2010. That was followed by a further £513,000 reduction in the current tax year. In the light of the rioting, all local authorities will be keener than ever not only to secure money for their programmes but, I hope, to ensure that we can improve the lives of the most vulnerable. As is so often the way in life, the prevention will end up being considerable cheaper in the medium and longer term than the cure that will otherwise be before our eyes.