Sandy Martin
Main Page: Sandy Martin (Labour - Ipswich)Department Debates - View all Sandy Martin's debates with the Home Office
(5 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Since the tragic murder of 17-year-old Tavis Spencer-Aitkens in my constituency, I have been meeting local community groups to see what we can do to try to prevent young people from getting involved in gangs, gang violence and drug dealing. There is a move to glamorise this lifestyle through social media, so I hope the Secretary of State can imagine my horror at discovering, just over a week ago, that films are still available on social media—showing violence, drug taking, making money out of selling drugs and, indeed, abusing young women—starring members of the gangs who are themselves currently on trial for murder. What can the Secretary of State do? Does he agree with me that he needs to work with other members of the Cabinet right across Government, and that convening Cobra will enable that to happen? We cannot afford to have this sort of glamorisation of a gang lifestyle still available on social media.
Sajid Javid
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of this issue and the need to work across Government. He asked about social media and the way in which some parts of it glamorised violence. I, too, have seen some of the material to which he referred, and far too much is available on social media. Some of it is generated in the UK and some abroad, but it all glamorises this type of violence.
What are we doing about it? Last year, I funded a £1.4 million project on social media capability, run from London, to look at what can be done to try to tackle some of this material online, but we need to do much more. We need new powers to do that, which is why I am working with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on a new online harms White Paper. The intention is to give the state more powers to tackle exactly what the hon. Gentleman was discussing.