Gangs and Youth Violence

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

One of the points that the hon. Lady is missing is that, sadly, over the years, significant sums have been spent on projects that are not as effective as they should be. There are families out there on whom hundreds of thousands of pounds are being spent by various Government agencies, often not working together, and this is not effective. The problems still persist. The work that has been done in Waltham Forest, however, shows that if we bring together agencies such as the police, the local authority and others to tackle gang violence, yes, we spend money on those individuals, but we end up saving money by turning their lives around. Often, the effective intervention is not the expensive intervention.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but a short prison sentence of two months for youths convicted of knife crime does not offer the opportunity for complete rehabilitation. Does she agree, however, that it might offer a vital opportunity to diagnose previously hidden conditions such as communication delay, which could be a key factor in people entering pathways to crime?

[Mrs May]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work on this issue. I know that he takes it very seriously, and that he has looked into the impact of communication delay on young people. In relation to sentencing, it is important to send a clear message about the importance that we attach to doing something to reduce and stop knife crime. We also need to look at the interventions that take place when young people are undertaking custodial sentences, to ensure that we can rehabilitate them and take the opportunity to turn their lives around.