Streatham Incident

Debate between Robert Buckland and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

May I join my hon. Friend in her tribute to everybody who did their utmost to try to save a life in what was a terrible tragic incident in her constituency? Sadly, it is an incident that is repeated far too often, and the scourge of knife crime is something that I think all of us in this House will have been touched by. The causes of it are complex. Some of the reasons are ones that we well understand—county lines, exploitation, and the use of knives as an enforcement weapon—but there are other reasons as well that we also need to understand. That is why I pay tribute to organisations such as the Ben Kinsella Trust and all those charities and groups that work so hard to educate young people about the dangers of knife crime. If I hear again the phrase, “I carry a knife for my own protection”, I think that I will scream. In so many cases that I have dealt with, that has been the cause of so much misery, injury and death.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

The people of Streatham, as resilient and as united as they are, remain shaken by what happened yesterday. We are very grateful to the emergency services for their swift response and for the fact that they saved many lives. The Minister says that we are at the forefront of tackling terrorism and that we have robust measures in place, but those measures did not prevent what happened in my constituency yesterday. Although I note what he says about automatic release, the people of Streatham cannot fathom a situation in which somebody so dangerous who has to be under surveillance immediately after leaving prison is allowed to leave. Will the Minister assure me, and assure the people of Streatham, that there is no circumstance—no measure that could have been taken—that would have stopped this individual from being released from prison?

[Robert Buckland]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She is representing her constituents fearlessly and well. I join her in the tribute to the people of Streatham who experienced not just the immediate horror, but the long aftermath of this terrible incident. I can assure her that the law had to apply in this case. This is the law that had been changed in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allowed automatic early release, and which meant that the Parole Board was not involved. There was no risk assessment as a prerequisite of release and therefore the automatic element of it meant that the particular situation that she described so well applied. It is something that I do not accept, which is why I have announced today that I will act and will deal with it in the form of emergency legislation, because I want to protect the public, the people of Streatham and the people of all our communities in our country. I thank the hon. Lady for her comments.