Gangs

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to be making my first speech as a shadow Home Affairs Minister on the issue of gangs. Like many of the Members here, I have lived and breathed this issue for many years as a resident, an MP and a community activist. In that spirit, let me put it on the record that I am sad that my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) cannot be here because I know how strongly and passionately he feels about the matter. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) for their contributions. What we are seeing today is a strong commitment from all parts of the House to tackle the issues that are driving gangs in communities across Britain. Clearly, many of us in London are living with these issues on a day-to-day basis, but we recognise, as the hon. Member for Hexham pointed out, that these problems are experienced across the country and as such they deserve a joined-up approach.

With that in mind, my contribution on behalf of the Opposition is a reflection on what is important in terms of the evidence base that we draw on when we have conversations about gangs. I am mindful that the Government have said that they will bring forward a gangs strategy in October. I want to ensure that the lessons that have been very well drawn out in the debate today—about the need for a joined-up approach and for a range of Government Departments and partners at national, local and community levels to be involved—and some of the concerns that we have about the ability of that work to happen, are made clear.

It is important to have two debates on this subject this week. This debate about gangs is different from the debate about riots that will happen later this week. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham pointed out, these issues have existed in our communities for many years. What we saw over the summer was not a reflection of those issues, but it was informed by them. It is important to draw that distinction.

It is also important to have a clear understanding about what gangs are. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made that point very well. When we talk about “gangs”, sometimes we all think that we are talking about the same thing but actually we are not. I am mindful of the work of Professor John Pitts, who made a number of studies about the nature of gangs in our communities. In fact, he studied my own community in Waltham Forest and he came up with six different typographies of what a gang might be.

It is helpful to think about the difference between the organised and serious crime gangs that we see in the UK—there are estimates that about 30,000 people are serious, hardened criminals who are part of those gangs—and the gangs that we have talked about more today: the gangs of young people who are drawn together in our communities, sometimes involuntarily. Professor Pitts talks about the “reluctant gangster”, the young people who feel they have no option but to be part of a gang in their local community, either to gain protection or to get opportunities that they do not feel they are getting in other parts of their lives. We must understand that we need approaches that tackle both those types of activities, rather than simply having one approach. That is also important given what my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said about recognising that this issue affects not just young men and that increasingly young women are a part of gangs, and also a part of the solution in terms of addressing how we might tackle gangs.

When the Government are looking at gangs, although we may only be starting to understand the nature of gangs in our communities and the variety of gangs that we must address, it is important to remember that a lot of good work has already been undertaken in local communities and indeed at national level. I urge the Minister to draw heavily on the joint thematic report that was produced last year, which I found to be a very useful guide. I think that the hon. Member for Hexham also drew on it, when he talked about the importance of the youth offending teams and the work of the youth offending institutions in tackling gangs. The joint thematic report was a very useful guide to some of the good work that is going on to join up services. It looked at some of the challenges that exist, including what we can do from Whitehall to join up services and to help to co-ordinate action.

The borough of Waltham Forest in my constituency has had a problem with gangs and so has been piloting a range of ways of dealing with gangs. I feel strongly that that work is important, not least because today—purely by coincidence—a young man’s family is coming to visit me in Parliament to meet Louise Casey and to talk about people who are victims of gangs. Eze Amosu was a young man killed by a gang in my community. When we talk about gangs and how we might approach them, it is important that we recognise that young people are primarily the victims of those gangs. It is important to support victims’ families too in the work that we do.

We know the importance of a joined-up model. As I said, Waltham Forest has been one of the areas piloting a range of activities, following on from the Strathclyde model that the hon. Member for Hexham talked about. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington was also right to talk about the Cardiff model and how we join up the reporting of what is going on in hospitals. The police are sometimes late to the game in terms of knowing where gangs are and what incidents have occurred. We have seen some real progress in the past couple of years in working together to identify people who have been victims of gang crime and in supporting them to come forward, either to remove them from gangs or to help to bring prosecutions.

What do those lessons teach us? They teach us, not least, the lesson that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham referred to, about the tricky question of resourcing the work to tackle gangs. As I think the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster accepted in his contribution, such work is an investment and joining up those services to get a preventive approach rather than a curative approach is the way forward.

Bearing that in mind, I have some concerns about the future of some of the projects that have worked so far. I am particularly mindful of family intervention projects, which we know are facing cuts. Also, our youth offending teams face cuts. When we are looking at cuts of 20% in our youth offending teams, and indeed at some youth offending teams being cut entirely, as we have seen in Cornwall, many of us have genuine concerns about the nature of the expertise that we may have to draw on in tackling gangs and what might happen to that expertise in the years ahead.

It is also important to look at some of the projects that are peer-led. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East talked strongly about the importance of young people themselves addressing some of the concerns about gangs. We have seen some fantastic work with projects such as Leap that teach conflict prevention in schools. Equally, Citizens UK has promoted safe havens. Young people themselves have identified such places. All of us who know about the “postcode wars” recognise the concerns that many young people have about going from street to street. We are also mindful of the experience that they have in places that can offer them safety. That work is important.

Even if we are aware of individual projects, the challenge is how we draw all these issues together. That is the test that I want to set the Minister today. If the Government are serious about tackling gangs, policing must be more than a deterrent; it must be part of a preventive approach. In that sense, there are some real tests for the work that must be done across Government.

First and foremost, the Minister must challenge his colleagues within the Department for Education about what is happening to our youth services and more generally about what is happening to the role of schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington put it incredibly well when she talked about the importance of schools in these relationships. When we are seeing the unhooking of the relationships between local authorities and schools, we are seeing a challenge to young people’s ability to achieve educational attainment. On a more pragmatic level, safer neighbourhoods partnerships and safer schools partnerships rely on those relationships being in place. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham put it well when he talked about those relationships continuing but on an ad hoc basis. Those relationships are too important for funding and support for them to be unhooked. I hope that the Minister will challenge those within the DFE who are complacent about this issue.

We have already talked about cuts in youth services; some areas are facing cuts of 100%. Without the people who can work at the grass-roots level in our community—to bring the intelligence, and to build relationships between the police and young people—our ability to tackle some of the issues that lead to gang membership will be compromised as well.

On a long-term basis, I hope that the Minister will challenge his colleagues within the Department for Work and Pensions about the issues of unemployment, particularly the cancellation of the future jobs fund. With 50,000 young people in London now out of work, it simply does not make sense to cancel one of the key programmes to help young people who want to get on and make positive choices about the kinds of careers they can have. I hope that the Minister will challenge his colleagues in the DWP accordingly.

Many of us have already talked about the importance of investment in communities and grass-roots projects. I have already touched on the role of youth offending teams and the concerns that we have about the cuts to those teams. However, this process is also about the partnerships that we can build with the voluntary sector and those on the ground in our communities. Many of the youth workers in Walthamstow who I have worked with in the past 18 months have had their funding either scaled back or cut entirely. Clearly, that affects their ability to be out on the streets and to build relationships with our young people to help them to make good choices in their lives. It also affects their ability to work with the police, both when we have events such as we saw over the summer—when we have riots—and in the longer term to build positive relationships.

I also hope that the Minister will challenge the Mayor of London, because one of the central parts of our relationships in London has been the role of the safer neighbourhoods teams and particularly in my area the sergeants who have been able to work on gathering intelligence, and on building relationships with voluntary sector partners and with young people themselves. Clearly, losing 300 sergeants in London will impact on our ability to build those relationships and to work in those ways.

It is not just about the Minister challenging his colleagues in other parts of Government. I also urge him to rethink the proposals on CCTV. The basic ability of the police to monitor where young people are travelling around and where there are gang incidents, and therefore to respond quickly before those incidents escalate and knives or other weapons are drawn, is critical. In my local area, CCTV has played a role in that police activity.

The Government must also consider their approach to antisocial behaviour orders. In Hackney, the police have used ASBOs to great effect to tackle some of the problems around gangs. I know that people have raised concerns about the gang injunctions. I urge the Minister to look again at the evidence on how those measures have been used to deal with some of the issues around gang behaviour.

Above all, the relationship that the police can have with communities is crucial. At a time when we are facing cuts in our policing budget, it is clearly difficult for the police to think in the longer term, yet there has never been a greater need for them to do so. When we are seeing unemployment and poverty rising, the landscape in which the police will be operating will be very difficult. To build those relationships with communities, they need to be able to have the people on the ground. Poverty is not a cause of gangs, it is not an excuse for gangs and it does not explain gangs, but it creates a landscape in which all the work that many of us have talked about today—work that can be the answer to some of the issues about gangs—is harder to do.

I hope that the Minister will take on board some of the concerns that we have expressed that some of the things that are happening in other parts of Government will undermine his ability to address gangs, and that he will act accordingly. I hope that the Government’s gangs strategy in October will be cross-Government, that the police will play their part and therefore that the Minister will champion such approaches. Otherwise, I fear we shall be holding similar debates in the years ahead, with the evidence worsening monthly. All of us who care about our constituencies and our country foresee the consequences.