The Riots

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on a subject that has rightly attracted a great deal of attention and comment. I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on securing the debate, and on his speech, which demonstrated a thoughtful, serious and insightful analysis, almost all of which I agree with—I hope that that does not embarrass him.

The three issues that I intend to cover are the causes of the riots, the immediate response by the police, emergency services and other public authorities, as well as the general public, and longer-term considerations, including measures that might help to prevent a repetition.

I shall start with the causes, and the factors that contributed to the worst outbreak of civil disturbance that the country has experienced in at least 30 years. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, we heard some over-confident and sometimes simplistic analyses of the causes. The hon. Gentleman rightly illustrated the fact that the extent to which people wanted to blame it entirely on criminality, or entirely on social and economic factors, was wide of the mark. Clearly, some people involved were criminals with previous convictions, and some of the activity was straightforward criminality. The extent to which many criminals descended on a retail parade in Charlton when they received a message that it was unprotected and open seemed to suggest straightforward criminality. It was certainly an orgy of looting.

That leaves the question of why the outbreak of theft should have occurred on that particular occasion. What was the trigger that prompted the multiple incidents in London and other cities during the period 6 to 9 August? Similarly, it is too simplistic to attribute the riots only to social and economic factors, even if it remains true that in general the more deprived areas bore the brunt of the rioting. In my constituency, Woolwich probably has the greatest deprivation, and it was the epicentre of the rioting, whereas more affluent areas such as west Greenwich were largely unscathed.

In trying to understand why the riots occurred, I spent some time reviewing the evidence, including some revealing CCTV footage from Woolwich town centre. I watched it with our police borough commander, Richard Wood, and I suspect that I went through a similar process as did the hon. Gentleman, who undertook a similar review of the evidence with his borough commander.

The CCTV evidence from Woolwich makes it clear that the incidents that occurred in the early part of the evening of 8 August, while groups of youths were gathering in and around General Gordon square, which is the heart of Woolwich town centre, could be categorised generally as antisocial behaviour. However, from around 8.15 that evening, the mood changed, and within a short time a police car had been attacked and set on fire, a public house had been looted and set on fire, and a large-scale riot had begun to take root. It caused extensive damage to other premises in General Gordon square, as well as adjoining Powis street and further away on trading estates along the Woolwich road into Charlton as far as the Greenwich peninsula.

In my view, the change from a potentially problematic display of antisocial behaviour to a full-blown riot occurred when the group of young people who had gathered in the area realised that the police did not have the numbers or capability to stop them. Within a very short time, from their understanding, the police were powerless to prevent disorder, and the situation in Woolwich and the surrounding area was out of control.

I want to stress four specific points. First, the London borough of Greenwich had not suffered the disturbance that had affected other areas, such as Tottenham and Lewisham, on the previous days, and there had been no serious incidents or riots early in the evening of 8 August in Woolwich, so under existing procedures—within the Metropolitan police in London and more widely with other police authorities—for mutual aid, some officers were withdrawn from the borough of Greenwich to provide assistance elsewhere. That is why police numbers in Woolwich were inadequate to cope with the riot when it took place. I want to make it clear that that was not a local failure, but it reflects on the arrangements applying throughout the Metropolitan police area because there were simply insufficient police to contain the riot when it kicked off in Woolwich.

Secondly, I referred to the people gathered in and around General Gordon square as youths. That does not mean that they were predominantly young people. Yes, some juveniles were involved, and some young people under 18 were arrested and charged, but in my judgment the majority of those involved were over 18, and were probably in the age bracket 18 to 25, although some were older. There were some shocking images of people who should have been exercising a mature influence clearly egging on other rioters and benefiting from the chaotic situation.

Thirdly, those involved in the riots, and those who were consequently charged with criminal acts, came from different ethnic backgrounds. The Greenwich and Woolwich constituency is a diverse community with representatives of many different ethnic groups. That diversity applied equally to those involved in the rioting. It is not the case that one single ethnic group was responsible or even disproportionately involved.

Fourthly, those involved in rioting did not seem to come disproportionately from one location, one part of London or one particular type or tenure of housing. It is important to understand that.

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

Has my right hon. Friend given some thought to the suggestion that some people should be evicted because of their involvement in the riots? I know that his borough has taken a particular stance on that, and I wonder whether he has any comment to make on it.

[Mr Raynsford]

I entirely understand that if someone has been guilty of trashing their home, their estate or the area immediately surrounding where they live, it would be appropriate under normal procedures for action to be taken to seek possession of their property because of their behaviour, but a different issue arises if people who have been charged and even convicted of a criminal offence are then deprived of their tenure when they would not be so deprived if they had been convicted of such an offence outside a riot. In the example that I gave, if someone stole some DVDs or videos from an electronics shop during a riot and was, as a result, subject to possession proceedings, it would send an odd message if that applied in that case, but not in the case of someone who had been convicted of stealing videos from an electronics shop in other circumstances. That seems to be the nub of the problem. Tenancy laws must be applied, and they must be applied in relation to the tenancy and its surrounding area, not used as a second means of punishing people who should be punished under the proper processes of the law.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that, in some cases, councils have talked about using eviction laws to punish a whole family where just one person has been involved in rioting? One case, which was announced soon after the riots, involved a mother and her younger son being threatened with eviction because the 17-year-old son was involved in rioting some distance from the home. The mother and her younger son were entirely innocent, but the younger boy was going to be made homeless as a result of something his older brother had done.

[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—

[Mr Raynsford]

I see that I am not succeeding. Will hon. Members please accept that I wish to be brief? I do not want to take up too much time because other hon. Members want to contribute. I have said as much as I wish to on that particular subject, and I will move on because I have other points to stress.

As I said, there was no indication to suggest that the rioters came from one particular location. However, the hon. Member for Croydon Central, and his colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks), might be amused at one potentially misleading piece of evidence that I gathered quite early on. I came back from my holiday on 9 August, and one of the first things I did was ask my borough commander for evidence of who was responsible for the disturbances and where they came from. Having checked the people in the cells in Woolwich, he told me that a disproportionate number appeared to come from Croydon. There is a simple explanation for that. Croydon is not full of criminals who converged on Woolwich; rather, their presence reflects the fact that the riots in Croydon occurred earlier in the evening. Once the cells in Croydon were full, the police—quite properly, given Met procedures—used custody suites in neighbouring areas, and cells in Woolwich were used to accommodate a number of people from Croydon.

That is an important lesson in the potential misuse of statistics, and I cite it for that reason. One should be careful to dig down beyond initial, superficial statistics, and understand what lies behind them. I hope that the hon. Member for Croydon Central will forgive me for casting that aspersion on his constituents.

Let me turn to the immediate response to the riots. The situation on Tuesday 9 August was transformed by the deployment of large numbers of police officers in Woolwich and the other parts of the capital affected, and in other areas of the country. Throughout the day, I was bombarded with texts predicting all sorts of problems and threats to various places. I was told that the O2 Centre and Greenwich park were to be attacked, and that various other landmarks in the area would be targeted. That was a measure of the electronic media world in which we live; communications are fast and such rumours can spread quickly. However, although the rumour mill was working overtime, in reality none of those places was trashed or attacked. The presence of large numbers of police completely transformed the situation, and on 9 August, and on subsequent days, there was calm in London. It was not calm elsewhere, and I am aware of problems in other cities, but in London the deployment of the 16,000 police officers, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, had the crucial impact of deterring further trouble. I hope that the review being conducted by the Metropolitan police will reflect on that and make appropriate recommendations.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is being generous with his time. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) made a point about the immediate response to the riots being inadequate in terms of police numbers. Those of us who represent constituencies in Manchester and Salford were particularly annoyed that not only were police numbers inadequate to respond to the disturbances on that Tuesday evening, but 100 of our best trained officers had been sent to London. That was one of two major mistakes. The second was that our riot police—in Manchester, the tactical aid unit—are geared up not for highly mobile rioters, but to defend space and property. They need retraining for a different kind of riot.

[Mr Raynsford]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and that issue needs to be considered fully in the evaluation of what happened and in the police review. I hope that the review by the Metropolitan police will reflect on the deployment of appropriate numbers of officers with suitable skills and the ability to cope with such situations, and ensure that we are never again exposed to the risk of a rerun of the events of 8 August.

In Woolwich, and throughout London, we saw the determination of large numbers of our fellow citizens to reclaim their streets. In Greenwich, the local authority, police and other emergency services acted swiftly and efficiently to clear the mess, shore up and secure buildings damaged by fire and looting, and get back to normal as soon as possible. In Woolwich last weekend, we were proud to welcome the 2nd Battalion, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment on parade in General Gordon square as a clear symbol that Woolwich is back to business as normal. I hasten to add that the military was not there to enforce law and order; it was a purely ceremonial parade by a regiment that is based in Woolwich, and we are proud to have it with us.

What about the longer-term implications of the disturbances? I am not one of those people who fears that we may experience more riots in the immediate future. Apart from the obvious lessons to be learned about police numbers, we should reflect, as the hon. Member for Croydon Central has done, on the effectiveness of CCTV. Those images played a hugely important role in identifying many of those involved in the riots and providing evidence to support prosecution.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s view that those who are nervous about the civil liberties implications of the use of CCTV should reflect on that position. CCTV has played a crucial role over the past two and a half months, and continues to do so. The certainty of conviction is a powerful deterrent, and all those who have seen the number of people identified, charged, brought to trial and convicted as a result of that evidence should reflect on the likelihood of the same thing happening again should the disturbances be repeated.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I support the right hon. Gentleman’s comments as CCTV has played a fundamental role in the detection of those terrible crimes. I have been involved with the police in looking at crime in my constituency of Stourbridge, and it has been incredibly difficult to obtain CCTV coverage for any area, despite criminal activity being quite high in a particular location.

[Mr Raynsford]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point about her constituency, but I hope she will forgive me if I do not respond because it is clearly a different situation from that in Woolwich.

Although to some extent we can be satisfied at the degree to which those responsible for riot, disorder and theft in early August have been brought to justice, we cannot be complacent and we should not ignore warning signs for the future. As I have stressed, we cannot simply blame what happened in August on economic and social factors, but it would be foolish to ignore the truth that widespread unemployment among young people creates a climate of despair and alienation in which those affected may be more vulnerable to influences placed on them and pressures to get involved in criminal or gang activity.

As I have described, in the lead-up to the riot in Woolwich, we saw a gathering of young people who clearly had nothing better to do than hang around the town centre. That powerful image sends a message about the importance of finding more constructive activities for young people in our society. The Government must give the highest priority to reversing the disastrous rising trend of unemployment among young people.

Yesterday, I attended the annual awards ceremony for the Young Builder of the Year. We heard inspiring stories of young people from difficult backgrounds who had overcome huge obstacles to learn the skills and the work ethic necessary to train and succeed in the construction industry. We need to do far more to extend such activities, but sadly, as one of the Youthbuild UK sponsors at the event pointed out, the scope for taking on more young people and extending those training opportunities that have proved so successful is severely limited in the present climate. In particular, he highlighted the loss of the future jobs fund, which has been a major source of opportunities for such people. There are therefore important lessons for the Government to learn from this.

We must also improve opportunities for young people under 18 through youth and sports clubs, so that they can get involved in constructive and healthy activities, rather than possibly being sucked into the fringes of gangs and criminal groupings. Earlier today, I spoke to Councillor Jackie Smith, cabinet member for children and young people in the London borough of Greenwich. She emphasised that the council is seeking to maintain youth services in Greenwich against the background of deep cuts in its budget.

The importance of that issue cannot be over-emphasised, and one point that I want to make in conclusion really reinforces it. Today, I spoke to Naomi Goldberg, who runs Greenwich Action for Voluntary Services, the co-ordinating body for the voluntary sector in Greenwich. It recently conducted a survey among voluntary organisations in the borough, which highlighted a stark difference between organisations working with young people and other voluntary groups in their perception of their relations with the police.

Twenty years ago, the borough had a serious problem with racist crime, which culminated in the killing of Stephen Lawrence. It has been a long, hard fight to improve community relations and relations between the police and ethnic minority groups, but there has generally been significant progress. Relations between adult groupings and the police are generally much better, but as Naomi Goldberg told me today, there is no such confidence among organisations working with young people.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central made the point, which I strongly reinforce, that if we allow young people and the organisations working with them to continue to feel that they do not have a constructive relationship with the police, we will store up all sorts of problems for ourselves. Against the generally positive background of improvements in relations between the police and the community, that is a stark reminder of the importance of tackling this issue, and I hope that the review of the riots being conducted by the Metropolitan police will pay attention to it.

We all have lessons to learn from the rioting in early August. I hope that the debate continues to reflect the wide-ranging experience of different Members and is informed by real understanding of the causes of, and the factors behind, the riots, rather than by some of the rather over-simplistic rhetoric that we heard in the immediate aftermath. If so, I hope we can really tease out the lessons to be learned and ensure that there is a constructive response.