Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I accept the point about the phrase “county lines”, which has been used over a couple of years. It does not do justice to the horrors of the exploitation of the children involved in it, but it is the terminology used, and it seems to have gained credence among the police, law enforcement and the charitable sector. For the time being, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will use it as a short-hand, but I always acknowledge that this is child exploitation.

The role of parents is something I am very concerned about, having met far too many mums, dads and grandparents who have lost loved ones. There is much more that I want to do to help parents and family members spot the signs of a child who may be beginning to take the wrong path, and I am trying to bring to fruition various ideas at the moment. I hope I will be in a position to say a bit more, perhaps in a few weeks’ time. I am very conscious of that point, and I will update him when I am able to.

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

May I say gently to the Minister that, although I understand she is frustrated about having to come to the Dispatch Box on her birthday, it looks terrible—to those of us who are working day in, day out with families who have lost people, in communities where people are utterly terrified to let their children out of the front door, and think this should be the national priority and discussed every single day in this place—to hear her attack this as a question about process? It is not; it is about the detail.

The Minister knows—I have been to see her several times—about my concern about the connection between school exclusions and children who are at risk of violence or who are involved in violence. We know that the Timpson review is massively overdue, so this is not about the Timpson review. Will she confirm that this summit will look at the precise link between exclusions and knife violence, and will it involve the Department for Education? It is just not enough to say to those families, “Look at all these programmes”. They need to see concrete actions on issues such as the kids who get forgotten and then get caught up in violence. They deserve our attention.

[Victoria Atkins]

I get on very well with the hon. Lady, and I hope she knows that I am not in any way dissatisfied with being at the Dispatch Box on my birthday or on any other day. My frustration, such as it is, is that this is essentially a question about a date, and had the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) asked me quietly, I would have happily provided her with the date. However, this gives me the opportunity to explain the work that the Government are doing to tackle serious violence.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is right. I think alternative provision is key to this. We have our next serious violence taskforce meeting on Tuesday, and we will look at this issue in detail. I met the Children’s Commissioner yesterday to talk about her recent report and the role of education in this problem, but also about providing life chances—the hon. Lady and I have talked about them—for the young people we are steering away from carrying a knife and from crime. Those life chances are critical to this, and will of course be an important part of the summit.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

British Muslims are part of Britain. That is it. They are no lesser than any one of us; we are all the same. We all share different politics and different views. We all have views of the north and the south—living in Lancashire, I have an entirely different view of the south, and my Muslim communities in Lancashire will have a different view of the south as well. We stand shoulder to shoulder. We are not going to let these people spread their hate and we will put in all the resource we need to put in to counter it. It is very much incumbent on us all, from all parties, to do it together, because if we do not do it together, the bad people will exploit that difference and make it worse.

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

On Friday night, hundreds of local residents in Walthamstow joined together in a vigil for the people of Christchurch. We heard from both our Muslim community and our New Zealand residents, and many were clear with me that they recognise that far-right extremism does not come along talking about Hitler and wearing jackboots; it comes from those people who slowly drip, online and offline, poison into our politics and discussions. It behoves us all in this place, therefore, to stand up to the people who lead that charge. What does the Minister intend to do, when he recognises this twisted mindset, to make sure that nobody in this place gives a platform and a veneer of respectability to people like Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Fraser Anning? Let us say that they are not welcome here in this Chamber and here in this country.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady presents one of the biggest challenges of today—

Shamima Begum and Other Cases

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend asks a good question. It has been well documented that female terrorist fighters who have gone to join Daesh have engaged in murder, recruitment and radicalisation, including of British citizens through online means. They have assisted in rape and helped to keep sex slaves, and they have also prepared suicide vests and carried out suicide attacks themselves.

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

The Home Secretary is at pains to tell us that there is no consular presence in Syria. However, the aid agencies have a presence there. The International Rescue Committee tells us that the al-Hol camp in Syria is at “breaking point” because 12,000 women and children have arrived there since last Wednesday. Since then, 100 children have died, two thirds of whom were under the age of five. The Home Secretary has been quick to talk about his power to strip someone of their citizenship without due process, but can he tell us how quickly he has acted with the aid agencies to identify whether there are other British children in that camp who need our help? Surely standing up and speaking out for them represents the best of the British values that we want to uphold.

[Sajid Javid]

We should be very proud of what we are doing as a Government to help those who have been hurt or displaced in that conflict. The UK Government have committed more than £2.8 billion since the start of the conflict, which is more than almost any other country. As we will hear shortly in the Foreign Office Minister’s statement, we have committed a further £400 million this year. We are also leading a donor conference, and we resettled more vulnerable refugees through national resettlement programmes than any other country in the EU last year.

International Women’s Day

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

In 2018, CNN declared that it would be the year of the women, because 2017 had not been. We might have started the Me Too movement, but we were promised that the glass ceiling would be shattered by a woman President, and instead we got Donald Trump. To this day, Harvey Weinstein and the Presidents Club men do not face any censure. However, I refuse to let my anger about those injustices deny my sisters around the world this platform on which I can celebrate and shout out their achievements of 2018.

I stand with those women who marched in January and set up the Time’s Up defence fund, now worth $22 billion. I pay tribute to Emma Gonzalez, a student in Parkland, Florida, who inspired us in February by fighting for gun control against President Trump, and to Professor Stephanie Page, who in March announced the details of the male contraceptive pill that she has finally been able to develop. I pay tribute to Caroline Criado-Perez, who finally got us a statue of a woman in Parliament Square—Millicent Fawcett—and to Beyoncé for shattering the record for the number of YouTube views for her performance at the Coachella festival.

I pay tribute to our sisters in Northern Ireland and in Ireland, where, in May 2018, they finally won the right to an abortion after their campaign to repeal the eighth amendment to the Irish constitution, and to our sisters in Uruguay, who—also in May—finally saw the first conviction for femicide. I pay tribute to Jenny Saville, who smashed records for women artists in selling their wares at Sotheby’s. In June, our sisters in Spain made history when the first female-led Cabinet was appointed. Just a few decades ago Spain had no women Ministers at all, so that is a massive shift.

I pay tribute to our sisters who are now on the committee that monitors the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, standing up for disabled women around the world. I pay tribute to Jacinda Ardern, the first elected woman leader to take maternity leave in office, and the second ever to give birth while in office. I pay tribute to our sisters in Argentina, who in June marched with the Green Tide movement for their own abortion rights. I pay tribute to our sisters who last summer, in Iran, finally had the opportunity to watch sport in a stadium alongside men, and to our sisters in Saudi Arabia who are finally allowed to drive.

In September, we stood with the inspirational Dr Christine Blasey Ford as she stood up against Brett Kavanaugh. In the same month Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, having been ignored by the Nobel prize system, finally won $3 million for her breakthrough achievements in physics, and chose to donate it to support those who are under-represented in physics. In October Nadia Murad won the Nobel peace prize, Donna Strickland won the Nobel prize for physics—she was only the third woman to do so—and Frances H. Arnold won the Nobel prize for chemistry; she was only the fifth ever to receive it. Sahle-Work Zewde was elected the first female President of Ethiopia. In November, those amazing women of America—including some who are here with us today—stood for election. We were rooting for you, and we will continue to root for you: we stand with you.

In December, Charlotte Prodger won the Turner prize, and Imelda Cortez, a rape victim who had been charged with attempted murder in El Salvador after giving birth to her abuser’s baby, was finally freed from prison. Our Palestinian and Jewish sisters organised a strike to voice their outrage at the murder of Yara Ayoub and Sylvia Tsegai, mobilising to break the silence and impunity for the murder of women.

However, last year we also saw our sisters in Ethiopia attacked. We saw Marielle Franco murdered in Brazil. We worked “for free” from 10 November. A teenage girl’s knickers were described to jurors in evidence during a rape trial. We saw a similar case involving Ulster rugby players. We saw Google employees having to stage a walkout because of sexual harassment. We saw a fall in convictions for rape and sexual assault; and yes, we still see inequalities in our society. We saw our sisters in South Africa having to take to the streets to protest against the increase in gender-based violence.

We also saw that the rates of female genital mutilation are going down in Africa but are still prevalent, and this year already we have had to speak up for Rahaf Mohammed, the teenager from Saudi Arabia who fled to Indonesia to escape her family, for the women of the south Indian state of Kerala who have come together to protest women of menstruating age being banned from entering Hindu temples, for our sisters in Sierra Leone who declared a national emergency over the sexual and gender-based violence, and for the cyclist who was stopped in a race because she was going as fast as the men. This is the world we still live in.

We have seen time and again the challenges our sisters fight, whether our sisters in Northern Ireland still denied their basic right to control over their body or our sisters facing the problems of climate change. To every one of those sisters out there I say, “We are with you.” To every one of those sisters I say, “You will find a voice here in the United Kingdom Parliament.” To every one of those sisters I say, “Liberté, Egalité, Sororité.”

Knife Crime

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome the announcement by Warwickshire police. On other resources, a vital one that I mentioned earlier is support for organisations, mainly community organisations, to tackle the issue early on, through early intervention, especially to try to turn young people away from what might become a life of crime. The early intervention youth fund has already allocated funds to more than 20 projects, but the new youth endowment fund, which I said I would be publishing information on very shortly, will be allocating some £200 million very shortly to do just that work—early intervention.

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

Jodie Chesney, Charlotte Huggins, Tudor Simionov, Nedim Bilgin, Lejean Richards, Dennis Anderson, Aliny Mendes, Simbiso Aretha Moula, Sarah Ashraf, Asma Begum, Kamil Malysz, Bright Akinleye, Glendon Spence, Che Morrison, David Lopez-Fernandez, Kamali Gabbidon-Lynck, Brian Wieland and Jaden Moodie—I am not sure that that is a complete list of everyone who has been killed by a knife in London this year alone, but I can tell the Home Secretary that the taskforce, the consultations and the more reports are not working. What on earth will it take for him to recognise that this is an emergency that requires an emergency response?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady reminds this House that this is such a tragic loss of life. She talked of those lives cut short in London. There are colleagues here representing seats across the country where we have, sadly, lost lives. She is absolutely right to highlight this but, as I said, I really wish standing here that there was just one simple answer—just one single thing that could be done. We require action across multiple fronts and the best way to achieve that is for all of us to recognise that and to work together to deliver it.

Knife Crime Prevention Orders

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is almost uncontrollably excited. I think we must hear from her.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have to run to a Delegated Legislation Committee, but I am keen to take part in this debate.

The Minister is right when she says that people living with this in communities like Walthamstow do not want a back and forth across the Dispatch Box. They are not interested in who got sent letters or in the parliamentary process. They do not really care about hashtags.

A few short weeks ago, Jaden Moodie was murdered by knife crime in my constituency. On Saturday, another young man almost lost his life after being stabbed while in my constituency. What people in my constituency see is an absent Home Secretary. What they see is Labour Members dragging Ministers to the Dispatch Box and holding Westminster Hall debates about the issues of knife crime and youth violence. What they see is an absence of police on our streets, having lost 200 in the last couple of years alone in our borough. They see an absence of youth workers in a struggling community, and they are asking me who cares about this. They are asking whether this place cares about the lives of those young people. When they see corporation tax being cut and no funding for youth services, I fear they see the answer.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for introducing me to Jaden’s mother after last week’s Westminster Hall debate. Jaden’s mother showed extraordinary strength in staying in what must have been a very difficult debate for her to listen to.

In terms of resources, we would argue that it is not just about police funding, although that is important. We have rehearsed the impact of the illegal drugs market, and from the work we have discussed, the hon. Lady knows the vulnerabilities of young people, such as how the prevalence of domestic abuse can make young people vulnerable to exploitation outside the home. There is a great deal of work going on in government on the effect of adverse childhood experiences. If she feels so strongly about police funding, I hope that she will support the Government tomorrow on the police grant settlement, under which the Met receive a further £172 million on top of the £100 million-odd it received last year.

Draft Domestic Abuse Bill: Territorial Extent

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the territorial extent of the draft Domestic Abuse Bill and the consequences of this for victims of violence across the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The landmark draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which we published last week, will help to transform the response to these horrific crimes. It is aimed at supporting victims and their families and pursuing offenders, to stop the cycle of violence. The Bill will cement a statutory definition of domestic abuse that extends beyond violence to include emotional, psychological and economic abuse. The Bill does not create new criminal offences in relation to domestic abuse, because those offences are already settled law—for example, section 18 grievous bodily harm, coercive and controlling behaviour and even, in the saddest of cases, murder—and are all devolved.

In line with existing criminal law, the provisions of the draft Bill extend to England and Wales only. Contrary to the suggestion in the hon. Lady’s question, there has been no change in the territorial application of the Bill compared with the proposals in the Government’s consultation published last spring. That was made clear in the consultation paper and reflects the fact that the subject matter of the draft Bill is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We are currently in discussion with the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Department of Justice about whether they wish to extend any of the Bill’s provisions to Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. We are seeking to establish a Joint Committee of both Houses as soon as practicable to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, and I encourage the hon. Lady and all Members to contribute to that process.

[Stella Creasy]

Domestic abuse affects communities in every nation in the UK, yet last week, after two and a half years of waiting, the Government published a draft Bill that restricts action to only England and Wales. I am asking this question not to debate the nature of devolution, but to ask why this Bill has been restricted when what was promised from the outset was very different.

The original consultation recognised that

“Insecure immigration status may also impact on a victim’s decision to seek help.”

We know that migrant women are much less likely to seek help because they fear deportation. Some may point to other immigration legislation going through this place, but that does not include anything on this issue either. This Bill would have been the vehicle for helping those victims, as immigration is not a devolved matter.

The then Home Secretary, who is now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has rightly recognised that financial destitution can hold women in abusive relationships. This Bill contains much to be welcomed regarding action in the courts and an independent commissioner, but because it is restricted, it does not address critical areas of policy. Why, after two and a half years, would the Government do this?

The Sunday Times provided the answer this weekend, with confirmation that the Bill had been vetted by the Cabinet Office and that the Government feared making the Bill UK-wide because of the Democratic Unionist party. Why? Because this Bill is also about implementing the convention on violence against women—a convention the United Nations has said that we are breaching right now, because citizens in Northern Ireland are denied the right to choose not to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

Today, a brave young woman aged just 28, Sarah Ewart, is taking our Government to court to vindicate her human rights. She suffered a fatal foetal abnormality but, as a resident of Northern Ireland, was denied the right to an abortion at home, so she had to travel to England, as 28 women a week currently do. Last June, the Supreme Court told the Government that this situation breached the rights of UK women, but because of a technicality, it could not compel them to act.

This Bill from the outset could have been the remedy, but this weekend’s revelations show that the Government have drafted the Bill with a mind not to the victims of domestic violence but to their partners in the coalition. The Bill talks about domestic abuse protection orders, which are supposed to have effect across the whole of the UK, yet there is no clarity, given the restricted scope, on how the Government intend to compel Scotland or Northern Ireland to act on them. Given that the original consultation talked of working with the Northern Ireland Executive, these problems are clearly of the Government’s own making and a direct response to the call for equal rights for the women of Northern Ireland.

Given this mess, can the Minister confirm at which of the DUP co-ordination committees this decision was taken? It is not minuted in the notes of those meetings from July 2017 to Christmas 2018. The power to veto legislation affecting all of the UK is not in the confidence and supply agreement, which I note was updated on 19 December, so can the Minister explain how the decision to restrict the Bill for this purpose was made? What implications does it have for the role of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who has direct responsibility for upholding the human rights of the people of Northern Ireland? Can the Minister explain why migrant women and those on low incomes in abusive relationships should pay such a price?

Can the Minister stop hiding behind devolution and say sorry to Sarah Ewart for making her relive the trauma of what happened to her, just because the Government need the 10 votes of the DUP to stay in power? We saw that last night, and I have no doubt that we will see it again, but this Bill shows the human consequences for women across the UK of the confidence and supply arrangement.

I know that Members across the House want to see action on domestic violence, and these restrictions will trouble women only our in constituencies but across the whole UK. Given that this is a draft Bill, will the Minister commit to going back to the drawing board and coming up with a Bill that helps to protect every victim across the UK? I ask the Minister to fight us fair and square on abortion rights in this place, not through backroom deals and bargaining. Otherwise, it will take a rape victim having to come to court to make the Government do the right thing and not block this change. Put DV, not the DUP, first.

[Victoria Atkins]

Home should be a place of safety and love, and yet for 2 million people in this country a year, that is not the case. That is why we are introducing this unprecedented Bill, to try to help the victims of domestic abuse.

The hon. Lady rightly highlighted the fact that the Bill applies only to England and Wales at the moment. I set out the reason for that in my initial statement: the raft of offences that would support prosecutions of domestic abuse, including section 18 GBH and coercive and controlling behaviour, are devolved.

We have not rested on our laurels. I have written to the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Department of Justice to ask whether they will replicate this legislation in their own territories. I am delighted to say that the Scottish Government are looking at their own measures. I am sure that Scottish National party Members will have their own thoughts on devolved matters and the UK Parliament respecting that.

I must bring the hon. Lady back to the central subject of the Bill. This is about tackling domestic abuse, which I know she and many Members across the House feel strongly about. We must focus on the Bill. Let us not throw taunts across the Floor of the House. Let us work together to ensure that the Bill is in a good state when it is introduced formally. She asked about scrutiny of the Bill. We have said from the very beginning that this is a draft piece of legislation that will be scrutinised by a Joint Committee of both Houses. We anticipate that taking about 12 weeks, and once the Committee has produced its recommendations, we will look at those carefully before introducing the Bill.

Whatever the hon. Lady may have read on Sunday, I urge her not to believe everything she reads in the papers. We have to remember the people whom we are trying to help through the Bill. I have been delighted at the cross-party consensus on the Bill. Let us work together to stop this cycle of violence and help the victims of domestic abuse.

Knife Crime

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Westminster Hall

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

We could not have had a better Chair for today’s debate, Ms Buck, given your expertise and experience on this subject, so it is wonderful to serve under your chairmanship.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) for all his hard work in getting this debate from the Backbench Business Committee, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who I know is sad he cannot be here today, but, first and foremost, I pay tribute to the family of Jaden Moodie, who are with us today. They have shown incredible courage and strength at such a difficult time by being here and being so determined about the future.

I want to start by saying that we sometimes look at this through the wrong end of the telescope. We talk about the violence, but I want to start by talking about the person, by talking about Jaden and his family, who have told me about his smile, his laughter and his ambition to take up motorcycling, work in a garage and be a young man who would have a business that would thrive in our local community. When we talk about these young people, we must talk about what we have lost as a society, about the contribution they could have made to our communities and country, and about why this is, frankly, a national crisis.

Jaden’s is not the first story I have heard, and his is not the first family I have worked with as the MP for Walthamstow. In the last 18 months, we have buried six children in our community—children killed by other children. The others were Elijah Dornelly, Kacem Mokrane, Joseph William-Torres, who was known as Nico, Amaan Shakoor and Guled Farah. Each of their families, like Jaden’s family, is grieving for the life they have lost and for all the family celebrations where there will be one seat empty—one person they will never forget. They are now asking for our help so that no other family will go through this horror.

We know that we cannot talk about the details of Jaden’s case. That is absolutely right, but we must talk about what is happening in our communities and country. This is a national crisis, as I said. We should have this debate every week in Parliament due to the level of knife violence and the young people’s lives that we are losing. In London, there have been 15,000 attacks involving knives in the last year—a 50% increase on 2015. Five hundred children have turned up in our hospitals as victims of knife crime in the last year alone—an 86% increase in the past four years. It is an upward trend, as my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead said, and it is decimating London, in particular.

We have about 259 violent gangs in our capital city, who are responsible for almost a quarter of serious violence—17% of robberies, 50% of shootings and 14% of rapes in our communities. We know that gangs are growing, with 4,500 people in those roughly 250 recognised gangs in London. They are involved in not just drug crime, but violent crime. It is estimated that about 230 people in my borough are involved in gangs or are gang associates.

One of the things that gets lost in the way we look at these debates is the recognition that this is about not just gangs, but the people caught up in them, who live with the fear of violence—children who are not in gangs, but who are living through this time with us and who need our help. The Greater London Authority has estimated that by 2023 there will be a 15% increase in the number of children at risk from gangs in London, either as victims or offenders. That is an extra 123,000 young people aged 10 to 18 who need this not to be the only debate. They need us to talk about not just the violence we have seen, but the things that we will do to stop it ever happening again.

We know the gangs are changing. In my borough of Waltham Forest—what happened there has led to this debate—the problem was territory a few years ago. We have fantastic research on this by John Pitts: young people felt a sense of pride in being in a gang with other local people and said that that was who they were. Now, it is a commercial enterprise that is driving the toxin of drug dealing in our communities. There is a business ethos, as John Pitts calls it, and young people are being sent through county lines all around the country to make money for the elders.

The National Crime Agency found that 88% of areas now report county lines activity—a phenomenon that has grown only in the past few years. It means that what is happening in our capital city is affecting everyone in our country. And, yes, young women are involved too: 90% of those areas saw young women involved in county lines activity.

The gangs picture changes so quickly, but the young people who matter, and who are at the heart of this, do not. We think we have about 12, or possibly 13, serious gangs in Waltham Forest. Of those 12 gangs, only four were active a few years ago. The situation is changing and calls for a local response.

Some people have talked about middle-class drug users and the way they are driving the situation. It is important that we recognise, particularly in our local community in Waltham Forest, that people are trading in small amounts of drugs, which is pushing people into gangs. Some young people are being sent miles to make just £5. They are selling to everybody, and we need policing to be able to disrupt those chains of distribution. Anybody who tells you that policing does not matter is not living through this crisis. Our local community in Waltham Forest has lost 200 police in the past couple of years alone. Our police work hard to identify these young people and to work with our social workers and youth workers. Two hundred police have gone, which means there are 200 fewer people to help do that work—gathering intelligence, building the confidence of the local community, and interrupting and disrupting that behaviour.

We know it is not just about drugs. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead talked powerfully about the importance of social work. I want to talk about the importance of schools and, as I said, to see the children behind these figures who are falling through the cracks. When we do, we see so many similar issues in the stories they tell, which is why this debate is so important. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) is right to say that this is not a new phenomenon. The gangs might be changing, but we know what works. We know how we can help and step in to support families—not to demonise them, but to recognise their value to our communities.

We know that the motivations for joining gangs and getting involved in violence are complex. Yes, poverty and racism play an important part, but it is also about schools, geographical communities and the support networks—the strong and weak ones—around our young people. We see the grooming process start early, often with children as young as 10. Frankly, sometimes the interventions that we see are just too late in that chain of process, which is why I pay tribute to my local authority for the work it is doing. It recognises that young people under 18 who are involved in this activity are being criminally exploited and that they need protection and support. I also want to put on record my thanks to Gedling Council for the work it has been doing not just to support Jaden’s family, but to recognise some of the interconnections.

I know that Members will talk about early trauma, about a public health model and about how contagious these problems are. My local authority, like the Mayor of London, recognises that our schools are struggling to cope with the early presentation of these problems. How do we help young people who might be struggling at school and who have problems in their family? We need more than warm words; we need funding, and we need to recognise what we are fighting for: not just to stop the violence, but for a future for each of those young people.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) mentioned exclusions, which is really what I want the Minister to comment on. Looking at the many letters that she has written to me about this issue, it feels like we look too often at what happens when violence occurs, yet we know that exclusions are a common theme in some of the stories we are talking about. Indeed, 41 pupils a day were permanently excluded last year from schools in this country. There were 19 permanent exclusions in my local authority alone, which is actually below the national average. There are 115 children in our pupil referral units, which suggests that there are many more children who need support and intervention but who are not being picked up through the process of being categorised as excluded.

The all-party parliamentary group on knife crime found that one in three local authorities has no vacancies in their pupil referral unit. Those young people are the most vulnerable. They might be a minority of the school population, but they go on to be a majority of our prison population. They are 10 times more likely to have a mental health need, 20 times more likely to be subject to social services intervention, and 100 times more likely to commit an offence of knife possession. If we work with these young people now and recognise their value, we can stop many of these problems and break some of these cycles. I also say to the Minister that, frankly, we can save money. Every excluded pupil will cost £370,000 over their lifetime in terms of extra education, benefits, healthcare and the criminal justice system. That is a total of £2.9 billion lost to the Exchequer by permanently excluding just 7,000 pupils.

The Pitts research on Waltham Forest bears out what we are talking about in terms of those young people who are vulnerable and being exploited. One professional said:

“That’s the level of ruthlessness of these gangs, they will recruit these kids and basically just use them as a piece of meat for whatever purpose they’ve got.”

Another said:

“Youngers are normally easier to influence, when they are at school.”

However, the honest truth is that the Home Office’s work on violent crime—it is very commendable that the Home Office has started to look at it—is not working in schools and does not recognise that localised approach. A gang’s position in my local community will be different from a gang’s position south of the river, in south London. That work needs local people who see those young people, who see the warning signs and who see why it is worth fighting for their future.

I know the Government will talk about social media and the money they are putting in to tackling violent crime. I know they have recognised the amazing work that my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) and for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) have done on knife crime and a public health approach. However, we also want a preventive approach, as we have with healthcare. A legal duty to a public health model will mean little if there are no organisations to work with it and do the preventive work.

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green talked about people who are in a desert of decent people. We in Walthamstow are a decent community; I know that not only because of the good families here with us, but because of the amazing people from the voluntary and community sectors who have come today. They, too, are committed to solving this crisis. Organisations such as Spark2life, Access Aspiration, The Soul Project, Gangs Unite, Boxing4Life, Words 4 Weapons, the Waltham Forest community hub, Break Tha Cycle, Worth Unlimited, the Ken Tuitt Football Foundation and Walthamstow Youth Circus all see that those young people need our support. They need a Government who join the dots and recognise that too many of our young people are struggling in education, are vulnerable to exploitation and are therefore vulnerable to such challenges.

Yes, I have seen the letters from the Minister, for which I thank her. We keep talking about exclusions and mental health, but we need to join up the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. We must ensure that young people receive alternative provision, that referral units are not seen as some sort of sin bin; and that we see those young people as worthy of fighting for. Please, Minister, I do not want another child in our community to be buried because of knife crime ever again. It is preventable, and if we work together, we can stop it.

Migrant Crossings

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to share further details with my hon. Friend. We are helping our European friends in several ways with the huge increase in the number of refugees and asylum seekers since 2015. As part of Operation Poseidon in the Aegean, our Border Force vessels and crew have been called out on more than 700 missions and saved more than 15,000 lives. We are also working closely with our friends in Greece, having provided personnel, advice and funding, and we will continue to work with our friends in Europe to see what more we can do.

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

I want to say that the most terrible thing about the Home Secretary’s English channel photoshoot is his wilful misreading of decades of asylum legislation—legislation we were proud of in this country—but actually the most terrible thing is that nothing he has said today will stop the traffickers, which is what we all want. There are 1,500 people sleeping rough tonight around Dunkirk and Calais, 250 of them children and unaccompanied minors. Between them, they speak 28 different languages. They are not just from Iran, but fleeing persecution in Yemen, Ethiopia and other countries around the world. There have been 972 human rights abuses reported in Calais, 244 of them involving police violence. The Home Secretary says that he is there with the French police when they take disruptive measures, but they are pouring bleach into the tents of the refugees. If the Home Secretary cares about these people, as he says he does, he will spend less time on Twitter talking to the alt-right and more time in Calais, working out how we can deal with this humanitarian crisis now.

[Sajid Javid]

I am afraid I do not accept the picture of France that the hon. Lady has painted. France is a good partner and it is a perfectly safe country, as are many other European countries. The hon. Lady should think very carefully about the fact that she is indirectly encouraging people to get into small boats and cross the channel, which will put more lives at risk. She should think very carefully about what she is saying and what she is encouraging.

Future Immigration

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

As the hon. Gentleman highlights, it is important that we look at regional differences. One way of trying to accommodate such differences is through a shortage occupation list, and we have committed here today that Northern Ireland will have its own shortage occupation list. As we have referenced in the White Paper, I am also conscious that Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that has a land border with the EU, which causes other issues that also need to be looked at. We will certainly take that into account, too.

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

Page 8 of the White Paper retains the notion that there should be targets in our immigration system, including an objective number of people who can come, rather than recognising the need to look at skills. I encourage the Home Secretary to resist continuing this pointless exercise in targets and, instead, to look at issues in our public services and our NHS.

We have a nursing shortage of 100,000, and the nursing starting salary is £23.000. Since the Government cancelled the nursing bursary, the number of people training to be nurses in this country has dropped by 13%. When he looks at immigration and at salary levels, will he look at them in the round of our economy and our public services, and not take lessons from Conservative Members and the cutting of our international aid agencies? Will he instead recognise that a country that is spending £1.4 billion on agency fees for nurses within the NHS really needs to rethink how it treats the people who treat us best?

[Sajid Javid]

I always listen carefully to what hon. Members, businesses, hospitals and others have to say. The hon. Lady mentions nurses, and an example in relation to nurses—and doctors, for that matter—is the change we made earlier this year to the current tier 2 scheme to take doctors and nurses out of the cap altogether. That decision was welcomed by the sector. She may also know that nurses are currently on the shortage occupation list, which shows just how seriously the Government take this issue.