Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What steps the Government are taking to tackle antisocial behaviour.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

We have just published a draft Bill setting out measures to put victims at the heart of the response to antisocial behaviour. They include the community trigger, which will ensure agencies take persistent problems seriously; the community remedy, giving victims a say in the punishment of offenders out of court; and, overall, faster, more effective powers so that front-line professionals can better protect the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Browne]

Let me make two brief points. First, we take antisocial behaviour extremely seriously. I think that MPs of all parties see the terrible effect that antisocial behaviour has on decent, law-abiding citizens and we want to help them. Secondly, the measures are designed to be quicker and more effective than those previously in place. If they were not going to achieve that objective, we would not be bringing them forward.

[Meg Hillier]

The Minister has given warm words about his desire to tackle antisocial behaviour, but why is it that my constituents and people up and down the country who suffer antisocial behaviour will now get no action unless they complain three times, not just once?

[Mr Browne]

The hon. Lady misunderstands the intention of the policy. Our hope is that the police and other authorities will respond instantly when concerns are raised about antisocial behaviour. The problem in the past has been when the same concern has been raised repeatedly and no response has been forthcoming. What we are putting in place is a defined measure to make sure that that no longer happens.

Gangs and Youth Violence (2011 Riots)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing a debate on this important subject.

I am going to dive straight in by saying that despite media reports, overall crime levels in Hackney have dropped dramatically over the past six years. However, safety issues and the fear of crime remained the No. 1 priority in the council’s residents survey. Indeed, one reason why parents appeal school admissions is that young people are frightened of crossing postcode areas. Although fewer than 1% of Hackney residents have any involvement in gang crime, the fear effect therefore ripples out further. The Home Office had the mission in the past of reducing the fear of crime as well as actual crime, and I hope the Minister can comment on the progress that has been made on that, if it remains a target for the coalition Government.

My hon. Friend talked about riots and gangs overlapping; as she said, there are separate issues, but there are some similarities, and I will echo her comments in the time I have. However, I would like to mention one concern. I am a great defender of a free press, but one thing that those of us who are routinely active on doorsteps, in communities and in people’s homes get quite irritated about is the simplistic headlines generated by some of the media. Some of the journalism about the aftermath of the riots in Hackney was based on questionable and often unbalanced vox pops and on evidence gathering that was not true evidence gathering, which was not helpful. I suspect Hackney suffers from its improved transport links and its proximity to the headquarters of many national newspapers.

Let me give a feel for how inaccurate the coverage sometimes was. I turned up in Hackney town hall the day after the riots in August 2011. I was speaking to a French journalist, who interrupted our interview to stick her microphone out in the road, saying, “I just needed to get that police siren for good effect in my report.” That rather summed up the issue, especially as she also said, off-microphone, “This is a really nice area of town, isn’t it? It’s much nicer than Paris.” That is something I would echo for those Members who have not been to Hackney recently.

However, let me get back to some of the issues, causes and concerns. One really big concern that has been mentioned is unemployment. Unemployment among under-24s in Hackney is very high. We have a high percentage of young people, and about a third of Hackney residents—it is probably even more now, because these are old census data—are under 24. We had an increase of 30,000 or so in our population between censuses, which was made up largely of under-fives and people in their 20s and 30s. Some of those young people will be living in private accommodation, where 90% of people are employed, but only 40% of my constituents living in social housing are employed.

The issue of young black men is also of real concern; it feeds the negative stereotypes that are so often untrue, but there is a reality in Hackney. It is interesting that no schoolchildren were involved in the riots in August. There may be poverty in my constituency, but there is no poverty of ambition. We have seen hugely improved school results, so there is real reason for people to focus on what they can achieve in their own right, and that improvement in education is making a difference.

Another big concern—this touches on some of what is going on in our schools—is that, sadly too often, there is a lack of good influences and role models, particularly male role models. I will not repeat all the research, but an eight-year-old boy will typically look for a male role model. At that age, he looks away from his mother’s skirts, and he will latch on to whomever is around. On the Pembury estate—contrary to media reports, it was not the heart of the riots, but adjacent to where some of the worst activity took place—when older gang members have been put in prison, the youngsters, aged nine and 10, have sometimes begun to act the big man and to act as the leaders of their groups. The lack of male role models in schools, communities and, often, homes can therefore make a real difference.

That is a big issue for the Home Office to resolve, and I am not saying that it can resolve it, but we need to have a serious adult discussion nationally about what is happening, particularly in our primary schools. I always add up how many male teachers there are in primary schools, and, sadly, there are far too few. In under-five settings, too, there are generally far too few male role models. That is a real issue, which has a long-term effect, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) will have something to say about that.

Let me touch on the operation of gang injunctions. They were introduced by the coalition Government, and the Minister has direct responsibility for this area of policy. There is a concern about them, compared with antisocial behaviour orders. Gang injunctions come into operation after a crime has been committed, and they link good, positive aspects with punishment, but lawyers for the convicted have been arguing against the positive elements—for example, that their clients should have to attend college—and they have been winning. I hope the Minister will continue to be vigilant about how the Crown Prosecution Service represents the Crown in such situations, to ensure that those positive elements are not removed. I hope he will be humble enough to recognise that if gang injunctions do not work as intended, they may need reform. I am not completely against them, but they need to work, and it takes a lot of time to put them in place. If they are not delivering the positive, diversionary element, they are not worth very much. I hope the Minister will comment on that; if not, I hope he will give me a detailed response in writing.

Has the Home Office given any consideration to Operation Ceasefire, which is based on work by sociologist David Kennedy from Harvard? He came up with the Boston strategy, or Operation Ceasefire, in 1995, and it has subsequently been copied, most notably in Glasgow. In its work on knife crime in June 2009, the Home Affairs Committee praised the Glasgow model for achieving results. I will not go into detail, but, in summary, this approach involves pulling known gang members—nominals—together and confronting them with the information the police hold about them and with the impact of their crimes, before offering them the opportunity to come forward for diversionary activity. The model has critics and supporters, but has the Home Office done a serious analysis of this option for dealing with gang nominals?

That brings me to the work being done locally in Hackney. On the policing side, some progress is being made against gangs, but the most important work is being done by the gangs integration unit, which is headed by the former borough police commander, Steve Bending, who is now no longer a serving officer. The unit brings together police, probation, youth work, housing and any other agency that needs to be involved to tackle and divert gang members. It targets the top 50 gang nominals at any one time and sends them letters saying, “We know who you are, and we know where you are. We will be watching you. If you wish to divert yourself from gang activity, to move house or to get involved in education, or if your family do, we will help you in any way we can.” The unit is also doing a strand of work on girls in gangs, which, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) said, is a growing issue and a real concern in my constituency. The unit’s work is funded by the London borough of Hackney, where the mayor has done a good job, in difficult circumstances, of making sure that certain local priorities retain council funding.

I strongly echo the point so well made by my hon. Friend that we cannot have a stop-start approach. I am not asking for lots more money, but we need consistency of approach. Solving gang problems is not about having lots of new initiatives all the time. There are things that have been proved to work, and I am sure there are things we can learn that will work in different situations in the future. However, this is not about continually reinventing the wheel, as the hon. Gentleman said; it is about consistency of approach. I am sure the Home Office is fully aware that the cost to the taxpayer of not tackling these issues is probably higher than that of tackling them early, so this is important. Given the fear of crime that the few members of gangs can generate, this has to be a high priority for the Government.

I want briefly to mention some of the work being done by local landlords. The Peabody Trust, which is the housing association that runs the Pembury estate, has projects such as Threads, which helps young women on the fringes of gangs. It also has the local intervention fire education programme—LIFE—which is a five-day course for 13 to 17-year-olds on the estate. The evaluation is clear that the programme works and really diverts young people from antisocial behaviour. The trust has also introduced a 13-week parenting course, and parenting is an issue we have perhaps not touched on enough. It is challenging being a teenager’s parent at the best of times, but it is very difficult at the worst of times. It is easy to tell parents that they should control their children, but if they have a large teenager who has got in with the wrong crowd, that can sometimes be difficult.

We also have the Makeda Weaver project, supported by Shian Housing Association, which helps to rehouse gang members away from their area of activity. In the current climate, with such pressures on housing, some of which are caused by the coalition’s policies, such a scheme might be unpopular, but I would defend it to the hilt, because unless we get gang members away from their area of activity, there is no easy way of helping them to stay away from the company they keep there.

There are many organisations that do good work in Hackney. One is The Golden Company, which works with young people at risk of exclusion and often on the edge of gangs. They get engaged in a project that collects honey and other bee by-products, and they learn how to create small businesses and become young entrepreneurs. The company does some very good work.

In short, there are important local solutions, and one pan-London or national solution may not always work. We have good examples of how local solutions can work in Hackney. However, we can learn lessons, and some things can be applied more or less across the board. Pan-London support is crucial. There cannot be a rehousing programme from one borough: Hackney cannot have a rehousing programme on its own, and nor can Westminster. We need a proper way of working, agreed across London, or it will not deliver.

We need funding for diversion and intervention early on. The Peabody Trust is working with Hackney council to attend to parenting and intervention from toddler stage onwards. We need to consider a range of actions. I touched on parenting support, which is important, and so is support for young women; that is also happening in Hackney. It is all needed. I know that not everything that I have mentioned is within the purview of the Home Office, but I plead with the Minister to become a champion of the approach, across Whitehall.

I want to reiterate the point that it is not one-off funding and lots of new initiatives that we need. Let us stick with what works and keep funding it, so that we do not have a stop-start approach. As for those young people whose lives are ruined by gang membership, whose life chances are changed for ever and who are affecting their neighbourhoods, we need to get them out of that and into positive activity. Let us deal with the scourge of gang activity and gang violence once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)]

Thank you very much, Mr Streeter, for giving me the opportunity to conclude this afternoon’s debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing this debate. I remember that about five or six years ago, when she was a Minister and I was a relatively new MP, she was very nice to me—well, she said that I was surprisingly sensible for a Liberal Democrat, which was qualified niceness but nevertheless nicer than I had expected. I will try to reciprocate that positive attitude during my concluding remarks.

I just want to give a little bit of context. I do not say this in any way because I take any of the issues that have been raised lightly, but listening to the debate, one might be forgiven for thinking that we are having it against a backdrop of escalating crime in London or across the country. I will respond in a moment to the substantive points that Members have made, but it is worth briefly putting the statistical context in front of the House.

That context is that recorded crime figures show a 14% reduction in homicides in the last year. That is very substantial. Offences involving knives and sharp instruments are down by 9% over the same period. Also, NHS data on hospital admissions for assault, which are a very good indicator of the level of violent crime, including unreported violent crime, show a 6% reduction in the 12 months to the end of March 2012. Members have been good enough to pay tribute to the work that has taken place with the Metropolitan Police Service and other agencies here in London.

Of course there are appalling incidents and we are not complacent. As a Government, we want to try to do everything that we can to reduce gang membership and gang violence, but it is worth noting that there have been successes. There are volunteers and charitable organisations across London and across the country as a whole who should feel proud of what they have achieved; we should recognise that their efforts are reaping some dividends; and we would like even more to happen in the future.

I will divide my comments into three sections: the first is about how we try to prevent gang membership and violence; the second is about how we try to intervene at the crucial point if we fail to prevent gang violence; and the third is about the sanctions that are used afterwards.

I obviously have only a few minutes left to speak, so let me split up the first section on how we try to prevent gang violence. In a way, prevention easily splits into a sort of adolescent stage and a pre-adolescent stage. Regarding the pre-adolescent stage, I hope that Members will join me in Westminster Hall tomorrow when we have a debate about early intervention. That is a very important area and Members will know about the troubled families initiative, in which the Prime Minister takes a personal interest. That initiative is trying to help the 120,000 most troubled families in the country. There is a very high statistical correlation between children being born in troubled circumstances and their going on to experience underachievement, as shown in their employment history, their crime record and their gang membership. There is a certain level of activity through which the Government can intervene in that area.

Members will also know about the Government’s commitment to the family-nurse partnership programme, in which we will double the number of places to at least 13,000 by 2015. So there is a body of early work, and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) again mentioned today the importance of even wider social initiatives, such as having more male teachers in primary schools and more role models for boys, and I agree with him on that.

We then get into the adolescent and predominantly male stage; we are talking mainly, although not exclusively, about young men. Members have referred to the Government’s initiative to reprioritise £10 million worth of funding to 29 areas, including areas here in London—every Member who has spoken in the debate, apart from me, represents a London constituency. At least half of that money, so at least £5 million, has been spent on grants that have been given to voluntary groups, and that is not the only funding that has been made available.

However, I should say that I do not think the Government’s commitment to tackling this issue is just measured by how much public spending is devoted to it. There are huge numbers of very good voluntary groups, such as cadets, scouts, sports clubs, church groups and others, that are run by people right across the country and that have a very big role to play in engaging young people and giving them meaningful activity that does not involve gang membership and violence. I therefore reject the notion that the Government’s commitment to the agenda is measured entirely by the amount of public money we spend.

Having said that, we are spending £3.75 million over two years on the communities against guns, gangs and knives programme, £4 million has been made available to voluntary and community organisations working directly in local communities, and—I was asked about this by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field)—we are also providing £1.2 million over three years, starting this year, to improve services to girls at risk of being victims of gangs and sexual exploitation.

[Meg Hillier]

I have been in the Minister’s shoes, and I am a constituency MP with a strong interest in this matter. He has talked a lot about voluntary projects, but what the Home Office can do apart from providing some funds is rigorously to evaluate what works and to ensure that funding goes only to the projects that work. It should not be sprinkled so thinly that it has less impact than it ought to.

[Mr Browne]

We are keen to spend the money where it works most effectively. As has been pointed out, it is not just the Home Office that spends it; the Department for Work and Pensions has an innovation fund of £30 million, some of which is spent in this area, and there is another DWP project that helps prisoners on their release from prison. That matter was raised by a number of Members, including the right hon. Member for Tottenham.

The Ministry of Justice is leading some interesting pilot studies on payment by results, looking at how we can incentivise prisons more effectively to reduce the terrible reoffending rates, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. He also talked about work in young offenders institutions and adult prisons, and he specifically mentioned Feltham young offenders institution, which has joined together with the Islington youth offending team to deliver a specialist programme for gang members in custody. There is a lot of excellent work such as that, large parts of it directly supported, and in some cases funded, by central Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Lady will know that we have a cap on skilled workers, and that, so far, we have not come anywhere near to it taking effect. No business that has wanted to hire a skilled worker who meets the requirements has been unable to do so. Our policies are sound: we are keeping control of immigration but contributing very successfully to economic growth.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I represent Tech City, and in my regular meetings with representatives of those technical businesses, immigration comes up as one of the main challenges. For all the Minister’s comments just now about there being no cap, he is causing confusion and complication in a sector that could be driving the British economy. When will he rethink?

[Mr Harper]

I really do not think that the hon. Lady is right. We have a cap on skilled migration, but we have not come anywhere near it. We have a clear system for businesses being able to bring in skilled workers. If she has specific examples from businesses in her constituency, I would be delighted to meet the people involved so that I can set out clearly what our policies are, and if there are genuine issues, I will absolutely look at them.

Extradition

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations and comments. As he knows, the Government’s current thinking is that we will exercise the block opt-out and then seek to opt in to a number of measures. We will obviously consider the matter carefully and, as I said earlier, discuss the whole question of the European arrest warrant with the European Commission and other member states. As I have indicated, I am aware that other member states are also concerned about certain aspects of the European arrest warrant’s operation.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I fear that the Home Secretary is gambling with the justice for British victims of foreign criminals who flee to their home countries in Europe. She has chosen to opt out of the EAW, with no guarantee that we can opt in again, which could mean that British citizens will be denied justice. Will she outline in more detail what conversations she is having with other EU member states and what plan B is? Is it bilateral treaties with every single member state?

[Mrs May]

I am surprised that the hon. Lady does not understand the process a little better than her question suggests. I announced yesterday that the Government’s current thinking is that we will exercise the block opt-out. It is not open to us to opt out of individual measures; we can only block opt in or block opt out and then seek to rejoin certain measures. That is the process that the Government are currently going through. We will be talking with the European Commission and other member states about arrangements for the opt-ins and the specific measures that the Government choose to opt in to. The circumstances she sets out in her question are quite far from the reality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

The House will not be surprised to learn that I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Scrap metal theft is a serious crime that can have serious and expensive consequences, but Members in all parties will feel that when it involves the desecration of war memorials, particularly those relating to the two great wars of the past century, in which so many British and Commonwealth soldiers died, that is particularly offensive to our sensibilities. I very much hope that his private Member’s Bill, and other measures being taken by the Government, will help to address that appalling behaviour.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The theft of war memorials is a real problem, so what conversations is the Minister having with the taskforce chaired by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on how the Departments can work together to tackle this problem further? I say that notwithstanding the excellent work being done by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway).

[Mr Browne]

I am happy to have discussions with any parties that are interested in trying to ensure that we can make improvements, but I can tell the House that new measures will be introduced as early as 3 December to create a new criminal offence that prohibits cash payments in the purchase of scrap metal. We are putting a series of measures in place; we are not merely waiting for my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill to come into effect, which we hope will happen. We are acting more swiftly than that and I am keen to draw on support from all parties and none to try to ensure that we tackle this serious crime as effectively as possible.

Olympics (Security)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

No, I would say that G4S came forward and made a statement to the Government that it would not be able to provide the numbers required. It would have been easy for G4S to carry on saying, “We will provide the required numbers”—but it did not; it recognised that it could not and at that point it came to the Government and we took the necessary action.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

On 14 December, the chief civil servant in the Home Office gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, assuring us that everything was fine with the G4S contract. We now hear from G4S that 9,000 people are still being processed. Does the Home Secretary share her senior civil servant’s confidence now?

[Mrs May]

I explained this on a number of occasions last Thursday and this afternoon. There was a rolling programme for G4S for recruiting individuals and taking them through the training and accreditation process. G4S repeatedly assured us that it was going to overshoot rather than undershoot its target. It came forward and said it could not meet its contractual obligations only last Wednesday.

Olympics (Security)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I assure my hon. Friend that discussions are taking place among Departments about the funding. The funding will not reside with the MOD. The matter of penalties is one between LOCOG and G4S, but the Government will discuss it with them. As he rightly says, if the required numbers have not been delivered, the financial penalty proceeds should revert to the Government to make extra money available.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) about the number of people, including in my constituency, who would have loved to have had one of the 12,000 jobs that are now going not to security staff but to the armed forces.

The Home Secretary has been in her post for two years and two months. In that time she has had three security Ministers, and Olympic security needs have more than doubled. The Home Office knew that there was a problem in May 2010. When did she know there was a problem, and why did not she or one of her three security Ministers ask LOCOG more detailed questions about its poor forward planning?

[Mrs May]

If I may just correct the hon. Lady on one fact: there have not been three security Ministers over the past two years and two months.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is precisely why we are not just treating this as a purely policing matter, but drawing in local authorities, voluntary organisations and other specialists, so that that kind of positive intervention to keep people on the right track and off the wrong track can be part of our overall strategy.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister update the House on the progress and uptake of gang injunctions and, in the light of that update, advise us on whether the Home Office is reconsidering its plan to abolish antisocial behaviour orders, which also have a role to play in tackling gang culture?

[Damian Green]

I think that the hon. Lady will recognise that ASBOs felt like a good idea at the time but did not work and straightforwardly failed. Far too many ASBOs were breached, and increasing numbers of them were breached the longer time went on. I am sure that the policy was devised with the best intentions, but it did not work, which is why we have moved on to other policies that will be more effective in combating antisocial behaviour and gang-related violence.

UK Border Agency

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I understand that the last time there was an immigration debate in the House, not a single speech was made from the Labour Back Benches.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the Government’s first acts was to abolish plans to put fingerprints in British passports. We now hear that the Immigration Minister gave the impression to officials that it was okay to implement the suspension of secure identity checks. Does he have the Home Secretary’s full confidence?

[Mrs May]

Absolutely, and I have already answered the points about the Immigration Minister’s comments. The hon. Lady needs to recognise that secure identity checks were suspended before January/February 2011, that they were suspended until May, and sadly, despite the fact that I explicitly said that they should not be suspended in May, they remained suspended. That was without ministerial authorisation. It is high time that she and her right hon. and hon. Friends recognised what was happening without ministerial authorisation.

Border Control Scheme

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The Labour party, predictably, has passed the information on to newspapers, so we know what it has. [Interruption.] I do know about that. I will not stand here and condemn people for using leaked information. I merely point out to the shadow Home Secretary that it is rather more effective when one produces documents that show that Ministers have done something wrong. Throughout this affair, she has so far signally failed to do that.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister please tell the House how many of our border operations he has visited in the past 18 months?

[Damian Green]

All the big ones. I have been to all the major airports and all the major UKBA centres, as well as to several of the biggest overseas visa operations. The hon. Lady is quite right to suggest that Ministers should get out and talk to people who are actually doing the job. I do that as often as I can.