Oral Answers to Questions

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have continual conversations about that and continue to resist any attempts to do it. One of the areas I have been most concerned about is the creation of the justice scorecard, the latest version of which was published yesterday. I believe it is a vehicle that theoretically allows the Commission to extend its legislative remit. I am pleased to tell the House that the United Kingdom is the only country that is wholly not co-operating with the justice scorecard.

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

T2. Legal aid used for injunctions and stays pending judicial review has been vital in preventing ordinary families from spiralling into homelessness and, indeed, in saving the public purse the costs of incorrectly made homelessness decisions by local authorities. Will Ministers confirm whether the changes made to legal aid in regulations last week have retained that specific protection?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The provisions are there and there are exceptions. The hon. Lady will be aware that the argument constantly put forward that legal aid is being taken away from everyone simply does not match up. For those who are in need and when people’s individual liberty is at stake, legal aid is provided, as is the case with other provisions.

Protecting Children Online

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are looking very closely at that issue, which has been debated recently. It is right that my colleagues in the relevant Departments look to see what action it is appropriate to take.

CEOP works with UK police forces, which carry out excellent work in tracking down and arresting the owners of sites within the UK and rescuing and safeguarding the children who are subject to abuse. We will continue to support and promote the work of CEOP. It is important to note that the number of people working there has increased from 85 in 2010 to 130 now. CEOP is now a command within the National Crime Agency, and this will build on its success and allow it to work closely with other commands to ensure that children continue to be safeguarded. CEOP receives important support, in the form of a skills resource, from the business sector, including Microsoft, BAE Systems Detica and Visa, as well as children’s charities such as the NSPCC. At next week’s summit we will discuss what further resources we can bring to bear for CEOP, especially in terms of support from businesses that can bring particular skill sets to help it to carry out its work. As I said, we will also discuss with CEOP its close co-operation and work with the IWF.

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

I am pleased to hear the Minister being positive about the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). I hope that the summit will be a very productive discussion. End Violence Against Women has come up with a specific proposal on how to tackle the production of so-called rape porn, both online and offline. Can the Minister confirm that that will also be on next week’s agenda so that it can be talked through with businesses and then inform the discussions between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice?

[Mr Vaizey]

We will certainly look at what we need to include on the agenda. The summit has to focus on what internet companies can do to help us to tackle not only child abuse images but the exposure of children to online pornographic content. If there are comments to be made that would inform the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office, we will make sure that that happens.

We need to focus on closer co-operation between the IWF and CEOP and on resource from industry to help the IWF to do its work. There should be greater focus on peer-to-peer networks, and a clear strategy to increase our international work, which is already taking place.

As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said, there is a clear distinction between illegal child abuse images and age-inappropriate content.

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[Mr Vaizey]

We can hold our heads high as being far more advanced than many other countries around the world. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman with details of what other countries are doing and where we rank compared with them. It is also important to point out that those five ISPs cover the vast majority of customers using the internet at home.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said that we have not implemented the recommendations of the Bailey review, but I remind her that this Government set up that review because of this Prime Minister’s passion to protect children from the sexualisation of society. As Reg Bailey himself said in his recently published review of progress:

“I have been pleased to see that many parts of industry have risen to the challenge”

and that good progress has been made against his recommendations.

Bailey called for greater transparency in the regulatory framework through the creation of a single website for regulators. ParentPort, launched in 2011, is a single website, created by media regulators, through which parents can complain about inappropriate material. Bailey also called for a reduction in on-street advertising containing sexualised imagery that is likely to be seen by children, and the Advertising Standards Authority has issued guidelines on the use of such images in outdoor advertising. He also recommended restricting the employment of children as brand ambassadors and ensuring that magazines and newspapers with sexualised images on the cover are not sold in easy sight of children and that the content of pre-watershed TV programming better meets parents’ expectations.

Those recommendations and others have been met. Of course, that is not to say that every recommendation has been met in full. There is still work to do on, for example, online music videos.

[Stella Creasy]

The Bailey review also pointed out that, as much as we must try to adapt to many of the ways in which technology is changing, no filter or technology can compensate for parents and teachers giving positive examples. Yesterday the House had an opportunity to make sure that sensitive discussion of issues such as sexual consent, equality and respect in relationships was on the agenda, so is the Minister disappointed that his Government voted against putting sexual consent in the curriculum in a way that would allow young people to get training and advice on how to tackle these issues and let us build a filter in their heads about them, too?

[Mr Vaizey]

This issue was debated fully in the House yesterday and there are two Education Ministers present—the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) and my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary. As the hon. Lady knows, sex and relationships education is compulsory in secondary schools. We trust teachers, who are best placed to provide the appropriate advice, guidance and support to children in their schools. Teachers who teach sex education follow the statutory guidance laid out by the Education Secretary, but we do not believe it is right to remove the ability of parents to withdraw their children from sex education at any key stage, as the Opposition advocate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We all heard the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) say, “Lock ’em up for longer”. If he was worried that his tone was untypically muted, his worry was groundless.

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

20. What the Government’s strategy is for victims of crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)]

For many years victims have felt overlooked and completely unsupported by the criminal justice system. The Government are determined to put that right, which is why we are implementing a range of reforms that will put victims at the very heart of the criminal justice system, which we say is where they belong.

[Stella Creasy]

Today we will hear more about the tragic case of Maria Stubbings and how she was dealt with as a victim of domestic violence. Ministers have acknowledged that delays in our courts system disproportionately affect victims of sexual violence. Will they acknowledge that too many female victims in Britain get a raw deal in our criminal justice system, and what do they intend to do about it?

[Mrs Grant]

I categorically do not agree with what the hon. Lady has said. The Government are absolutely committed to tackling domestic violence and violence against women and girls. We have set up a national taskforce, led by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, to protect children and vulnerable people from sexual violence. We have also opted into the EU directive on combating child sexual exploitation and will continue to do everything we possibly can to ensure that vulnerable people are protected from the devastating crimes that can do serious long-term harm.

Sport and Youth Crime

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I congratulate my fellow Red—in many senses, from what he said today—the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing the debate, which is timely, as has been said. There is a large degree of consensus in the Chamber about the importance of sport to our young people. I wish to talk about that, about some of the challenges in achieving the outcomes that we all say that we can achieve through sport and about why that matters.

The first point to make on the record, perhaps with an exception for the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson)—I take issue with his humbleness about the impact of sport on his own achievements—is that we all recognise, as the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, that sport is not enough on its own. It is not about containing or diverting young people, but about the relationship that good, positive sporting activities and those who undertake them can play in securing achievement for our young people. Therefore, it is important to see sport not simply as a form of diversion but as a pathway to that achievement, and that is how we get the impact that we are all talking about. Not only do the coaches in our own communities keep kids off the street, but they keep them on that path towards the straight and narrow, towards the things that they could do in life.

This is not just about young people’s formal exercise activities—I take on board the points made by the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for North Swindon—but about the soft skills that they learn from being involved in sport and working with sports coaches and other young people. Those skills include team leadership, teamwork and participation, and what they offer not just on the pitch, but in the playground and the classroom. The importance of data and examples to prove what we have all known for many years—this applies especially to those of us who have worked in the youth voluntary sector—about those relationships and what sport gives to young people is vital to understand in whose interest investment in sport provision is and to secure those outcomes.

We have talked about different interventions, or alliterations, whether prison to pitch, cricket for change, or troops for teachers, and they all show that thinking smartly about how to bring those skills to young people—the right people to work with to engage them in those activities—reaps rewards that last not just while taking part in the sport, but for a generation. We also talked about the value for money of those programmes, which is a key point to which I shall return. If it is recognised that the benefits accrue not just in the short term, but in the long term, it is necessary also to recognise whose responsibility it is to support that work to secure the gain.

The challenge for us all is not to make the case for whether sport can play an important role in helping young people to achieve, thereby in tackling crime and under-achievement, but to say how to do that. The hon. Member for North Swindon mentioned school sports, and I pay tribute to the support that he gave to many of us who were deeply worried by the proposals to cut the school sports programme. I want to put on the record my personal thanks to my right hon. Friends the Members for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) for their work in improving dramatically the teaching of sport through schools and for having the far-sightedness to recognise its value.

School sports drove up participation in high-quality physical education for our young people from only 25% in 1997 to more than 90% in 2010. The school sport partnership, to which the hon. Member for North Swindon referred, was vital because it enabled the infrastructure that made participation possible to be put together, including the people who organised the games, provided the coaching and looked for the range of sports that young people want to take part in. When the Government foolhardily tried to dismantle that network, there was, rightly, an outcry. It is welcome that they have backed down to some degree, although many of us who still work with our local school sport co-ordinators are worried about the impact of those changes.

The issue is not just what can be done in schools. Critically, it involves the role of the voluntary sector. Some fantastic examples have been mentioned today. I have worked in the scouting movement, and I want to put on the record my support for voluntary organisations and the number of activities that they could provide. We are all clear that not just one sport is involved. Indeed, the scouting movement prides itself on being able to provide 200 different activities for young people each week and recognises that a range of provision is needed to engage with the range of young people.

I see the work of organisations such as Kickz in my community, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Leyton Orient community sports programme for promoting that work. The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe referred to the “Teenage Kicks” research. We know the impact of its work in pulling back young people who are at risk of antisocial behaviour, and we know that that makes a difference and is valuable not just regarding their antisocial behaviour but for their future achievement. He also referred to a social return on investment. Such programmes with the right people bring rewards that we could not achieve through sport provision alone.

I pay tribute to some of the grass-roots organisations. Many hon. Members have talked about fantastic large organisations that work with young people. I also pay tribute to Manchester United for inspiring me in many different ways. I share sympathy with the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for her support for Liverpool, and I appreciate the work of the Liverpool community sport programme. Many of us know of smaller organisations in our communities, including Salaam Peace and Asianos in my constituency, that encourage young men to take part in football and cricket. They engage with young people with mentors from similar backgrounds who recognise the role of sport in providing soft skills and spend their lives encouraging young people to take part.

All such organisations—I want to turn to risks—show the importance of joined-up provision. The funding for such organisations often comes from a range of sources, including public and voluntary sources, and philanthropically from the private sector. That is a concern that I want to put to the Minister. We all recognise, because of the relationship to achievement, the value for money of investing in sport and providing sporting activities not just early in children’s lives, but throughout the critical periods of transition to adulthood, but how can we ensure that that happens not just for the few, but for all young people?

One of my concerns, having worked in the voluntary and community sector in providing for young people, as well as in local government, is the impact of some of the cuts on our ability to deliver such services. One challenge for local authorities, which often fund such work initially and are often a vital support for voluntary organisations at grass-roots and national level, is that the speed of the cuts means that they are cutting the very relationships that we all believe are important for young people, because there was no time to find efficiencies, to renegotiate contracts or to share services. Inevitably, funding for the voluntary sector, especially non-statutory services such as youth services, has suffered most. No one is denying that money must be saved, but it will clearly be a false economy if the very services and relationships that we know make a difference to our young people are the first to be cut.

[Damian Collins]

On priorities, the previous Government decided not to support Kickz from the investment budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport because the programme was not designed purely to increase participation. Some people may say that it had a stronger function, but that function has been recognised by the Home Office in particular under the current Government. Total money is important, but so is deciding on priority areas of spending.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about priorities, but he is being a little disingenuous about Kickz, because it received public funding from other agencies. This is not just about particular projects; the case that he made powerfully, with which I agree, is that it is about the activities that we ask youth providers to undertake. Indeed, I would be critical of those who simply offer sport without asking what it can do in the long term for young people and those who say that it is enough just to get young people off the streets. That is why I challenge the hon. Member for North Swindon, who suggested that all that mattered was that he was tired at the end of the day. I suspect that participating in sport, working with other young people and organising sport made a difference to his confidence and probably also to his life chances.

We cannot get away from how to fund such activities. My worry today is that cuts mean that organisations and programmes such as Kickz and Leyton Orient’s community sports programme are under pressure as a result of some of the Government’s choices. If we all accept the case that good sports activity can provide that longer-term function in young people’s lives, we should be fighting for resources to go to those organisations and making the case for investment now and in the future, as a way to protect longer-term achievement.

The issue is not just the practical provision of services, but how that can help to reduce crime. The Minister may not be responsible for the allocation of budgets to the Department for Communities and Local Government, but he is responsible for community safety grants. We have seen a massive slashing of those grants and the very money that was helping the police and local authorities to work creatively with local community groups to provide outreach activities. For example, in Lambeth, one of the boroughs that was affected by the riots, the community safety grant has been reduced from £691,000 in 2010-11 to just £276,000 in 2012-13. Hounslow is facing a 32% cut in its youth offending budget next year. That matters because the funding allows people to think creatively about how to engage with young people and to do more than just tackle crime; it can prevent it by funding work with those young people, but that is under threat.

I want to flag up for the Minister the fact that the funding cuts for local government are a real risk to some of their key provision of facilities. The hon. Member for North Swindon spoke effectively about the importance of school buildings. The extended schools programme was doing exactly what he was asking for. It was encouraging schools to consider how to open up their facilities. I represent an area in north-east London, and I am conscious of the lack of space to undertake sporting activities. There is a relationship between playing sport at school and taking part in sporting events organised by voluntary organisations outside the school, but somewhere is needed to do that work. Will he make a case for revising that decision? I am sure that he will ask where the money will come from.

May I encourage the Minister to talk to his colleagues in the Department for Education about the national citizen service? There are questions about the scheme’s value for money, and the Education Committee has highlighted concerns about the costs versus outputs that we will get from the service as it is currently constructed. If the Minister recognises the social return on investment in sport in tackling youth crime and also in delivering achievement, I suggest that he work with his colleagues across the Government to make the case for a better use of the funding that is available for youth provision.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that much of the purpose of the citizen service scheme is to engage young people in the idea of volunteering and getting involved in their communities? On no planet will the Government be able to fund the entirety of amateur youth sport across the country. The national citizen service scheme plays a valuable role in introducing young people into their communities, so that they too can coach young people and play an active part in their community. It cannot be measured in the simplistic terms suggested by the hon. Lady.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Lady ought to listen to her colleague, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who talked about priorities. In a time of financial austerity, the national citizen service is a very expensive scheme for a very small amount of time. If we are not able to fund everything—yet we are all in this together—we have to look at what money is being spent on young people. I advise the hon. Lady to look at the Government’s commitment to fund the national citizen service for all 16-year-olds and the amount of money that that implies. She has made a powerful case about value for money and the cost of some of the alternative schemes that support young people, but perhaps she should consider which is the greater priority at this point in time. I have a background in working with a national scheme that provides exactly that sort of citizen service through the uniformed organisations. No one is suggesting that such schemes do not have merit, but in a time of financial austerity, it is absolutely right to ask about the Government’s priorities, especially given the powerful case that Conservative Members have made about the impact of sports provision and the importance of working with voluntary organisations and providing services not just for eight weeks in the summer but throughout a young person’s life, so that they can have mentoring and support, not just to avoid antisocial behaviour, but to secure achievement.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

The hon. Lady suggests that the systems that we have had seem to have worked. It is fair to say that this new initiative is a seedcorn project, but I think that it has great potential. We should not keep throwing money at projects that may not have had the impact that the hon. Lady suggested.

[Stella Creasy]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, and I therefore advise her to read the Education Committee’s report on the national citizen service in which questions were raised about the scheme’s value for money and efficacy. That is the key point. If we all agree that sport makes a difference to young people’s achievement, we have to look at how we can use the resources that we do have to make sure that we get results. I will end on that point. The Minister needs to champion the work that we all agree is important and he needs to champion the resourcing, otherwise many young people will not have access to the opportunities that we all agree make such a difference, and we all recognise that Britain would be poorer for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I am sure that there is scope. Equally, if I were to ask any of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, I bet that they would supply good examples of activities in which local police officers are already engaged. I am sure, however, that they would accept my hon. Friend’s encouragement in the right spirit. They play an important role in the community.

I reject the characterisation of the police that was offered yesterday in research commissioned by The Guardian. It suggested that some hostility to the police is necessary, but in fact the development of neighbourhood policing and the community interaction carried out by the police is important and something that we must maintain and continue to develop.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister and I agree that it is important for the police to interact with young people over things other than criminal behaviour, so that trust can be built and young people can see the police as being on their side. What assessment has the Minister made of the effect that cuts to police numbers and the safer neighbourhood teams will have on the ability of the police to participate in sports games, to be on the street and to have that relationship with young people?

[Nick Herbert]

One departure from an otherwise consensual debate was the utterly predictable statement made by the hon. Lady when she laid at the door of the Government cuts that, in her assessment, will mean that none of the positive activities under discussion can take place. She described the choices that the Government are making, but we make such decisions because the economy is in difficulty and we inherited debt from the previous Government. Some contrition and responsibility for that on the part of the hon. Lady might make her position more credible. Like any Government, we have to find savings. When it left office, the hon. Lady’s party was committed to £40 billion of unspecified spending reductions and knew that savings had to be made. So far, the reduction in front-line policing numbers has been just 2%; there is no need for the front line to be affected, provided that police forces make savings in the right way. Such partisan points do not assist the debate.

Several hon. Members mentioned the importance of the Olympics in offering something of lasting—rather than just temporary—value to this country and its young people, and we want to harness the power of the games to provide new opportunities for young people to take part in competitive sport. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon mentioned the school games, and such activities will be particularly important. Since the issue of funding has been raised, I will point out that over £128 million of lottery and Government funding is being invested to support school games, and that is underpinned by continued investment to increase the numbers of new clubs, coaches and volunteers working in sport with young people.

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend takes a particular view of the facts. From the Dispatch Box, I must take the view that the decision was taken by the Scottish Government on the declared basis of humanitarian grounds. No Minister of the Crown—certainly not me—is in a position to add to that.

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

Given the proposed review of legal aid, does the Justice Secretary agree that the problems faced by the Refugee and Migrant Justice organisation because of the late payment of fees and the lack of clarity about the number of current cases affected—the Home Office has told me that it is 5,000 and the Legal Services Commission has admitted that it simply does not know—mean that it is vital for the Government to intervene until these problems are resolved to prevent that organisation from going into administration and to avoid the possibility of further chaos, with expense, within our asylum system?

[Mr Djanogly]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has brought up this important issue. The RMJ was maintaining that it had 10,000 clients, but the administrators who went into that organisation to put it into administration assessed the number of clients at more like between 4,000 and 5,000. What is important is the clients. We need to move on from the administration of that organisation to concentrating on its clients, and I assure her that the Department and I are doing exactly that.

Defendant Anonymity

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to this debate, which is on an important and sensitive subject. I am very honoured to take part in a debate in which so many hon. Members have so much experience to contribute to our thinking. My desire to speak reflects my personal concern that the current proposals are both unworkable and, more importantly, counter-productive to our shared stated aim of achieving better outcomes for rape victims and justice for our society as a result.

This is a difficult debate to participate in, not least because it is still not clear what measures the Government intend to introduce. What has been published on the proposed legislation poses a number of questions. For example, what does anonymity actually mean? Are we talking about printed or public or local knowledge of a case? How could that be secured at any level? Inevitably, as hon. Members have said, people in the criminal and legal system will know, or will be able to secure access to, the identity of an accused person, as part of the day-to-day functioning of our court systems. Given the concerns about the relationship between our courts, our media and our criminal system, which were admirably outlined by the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the difficulty of enforcing anonymity is a clear challenge to the proposals.

Moreover, how far would the anonymity have to go to be sustainable? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) pointed out, what if somebody is accused of a number of interrelated offences? Would co-defendants be covered? They might be accused of less serious crimes, such as aiding and abetting, but would they be given anonymity to protect another defendant? What would it mean for a case if the name of a defendant or co-defendant became public? Those questions go alongside more important ones that we need to tease out. Would anonymity apply at arrest, charge or trial? It is clear that the nine words in the coalition document have stirred up a hornets’ nest, and I am grateful that we are having this debate to try to tease those things out. I hope that the Minister will answer the many questions that right hon. and hon. Members have asked.

It has been said that the measure needs to be introduced because the offences in question are so distinct that to accuse people of them falsely is to destroy lives. As others have asked today, why only rape? Why are teachers accused of such offences in a category alone? The inclusion of teachers reflects the fluidity of the thinking and its inconsistency. If anonymity throughout a criminal case were possible and desirable, could we define and measure the social penalty of being accused of a crime, or being exonerated, including before charges were made, in a manner that was satisfactory to all concerned? Anthropologists will tell us how shame, as a concept, contributed to many different accusations. It can be argued, as many in the debate have, that false accusations of paedophilia, murder, serious violence, hate crimes or domestic violence can just as easily destroy somebody’s life and those of their loved ones. Indeed, why are teachers alone in our public services afforded such protection? Why not doctors or care workers?

The debate is about more than legal semantics, and Members on both sides of the House who are concerned about the proposals care for more than intellectual consistency. It is clear that they are also worried that giving those accused of rape anonymity and not those accused of any other crime sends the message that rape is different and separate. In doing so, the proposals take us backwards as a society in addressing rape rather than help us to make progress. Furthermore, the proposal flies in the face of the evidence available to us about the nature of rape and how it is prosecuted. We do not have enough data on false accusations.

Many hon. Members have already referred to the excellent report on this issue by Baroness Stern, which identifies many of the challenges that we face with this crime. Above all, her report tells us that if victims do have the courage to come forward, and are willing to go through the criminal justice system, conviction rates are improving and justice is possible. But her report also highlights the fundamental problem of the high level of attrition of cases, and that is why we should be extremely cautious about doing anything that could make the process even harder. It also makes the case for looking again at how rape is handled by the criminal justice system.

The test for this proposal must be whether the intended benefits it could offer outweigh the risks that it poses to the detection and prosecution of rape. The benefits of the proposal could be strong only if we could prove that the false reporting of rape is systematic and widespread above and beyond that of any other crime in our criminal justice system. As Baroness Stern herself argues, we simply do not know that, and we do not have enough evidence about the false reporting of rape to make such a judgment. She rightly argues—and many hon. Members have agreed—that we need more research on that issue. Crucially, she also asks for more research into the false reporting of all offences instead of singling out rape. I hope that Ministers will address that point in the research that they are conducting, so that we have a greater understanding of the incidence of false reporting across the criminal justice system.

The lack of evidence is partly due to the difficulty of defining a false accusation, as many hon. Members have pointed out, and whether such accusations are malicious. Another issue is how incidents are marked as “not crimed” in the system and the danger of using that as a proxy for evidence of false allegations of rape.

If we do not have the evidence, and the Government claim that this proposal is not about dealing with false allegations, where has it come from? We are all aware of the media coverage that this topic has generated—much heat but not much light. The coverage is selective. I have recently made representations on behalf of a constituent who was tried for making a false allegation only to be acquitted, and now finally charges are being brought against the attacker. That case raises many serious concerns about the ability of our justice system to deal with rape, and the role of the Independent Police Complaints Commission in addressing complaints about how such crimes are investigated. I am continuing to pursue those complaints, but to have struggled for justice for so long in such a context must have been extremely difficult. To ask victims to come forward and report rape in an environment in which the law enshrines the notion that some victims will lie would be even harder.

No one suggests that being accused of rape is not a serious matter, but to presume that—unlike in any other crime—an allegation could be based on lies, the Government are on dangerous ground if they do not have the evidence to support the policy. It also stands in contrast to the evidence that publicising the report of a rape can be vital in the prosecution of cases. Several hon. Members have already highlighted the shocking statistics on the reporting of rape and the concerns that that will be adversely affected by giving those accused of the crime anonymity. Whether in the cases already mentioned of Worboys and Reid, or those involving individuals who knew their attackers, there is strong evidence that public accusations can give other victims the confidence to come forward and report their experiences.

The question of how cases are put together is not incidental but integral to the debate and the danger of these proposals. As investigations in the difficult area of proving a lack of consent can often involve very vulnerable people, we must be sensitive to what can be done to support them.

An interesting study by the Metropolitan police from 2005 found that 87% of those reporting rape had at least one of four vulnerabilities—being under 18, having mental health problems, having ingested alcohol before being raped and of having been or being in a relationship with their attacker. As the report points out, those add to the considerable complexities of prosecution and increase the chances of the withdrawal of a case early in the process. As I have said, I am concerned about the way in which cases are handled by our criminal justice system, something that the police have also put on the record in their conversations with the Eaves Partnership in London. The police acknowledge that

“the majority of cases are lost during the investigation process for a number of reasons including victims’ loss of faith in the process, the length of time the investigation takes, lack of communication between police and victims.”

To add into that mix a presumption of dishonesty could only make it harder for all concerned to take the journey towards justice. Indeed, if research is to be done, it should, in order to flesh out fully the challenges we are talking about, take into account not simply the concept of rape, but the outcomes and causes behind the complaint, whether the police felt that the victim would not be able to go to trial, whether evidence was gathered well enough to stand up in court, whether the victim withdrew their complaint, and whether the individual was tried. I suspect that, if we are able to gather such data, the picture would be very different from that being painted in the reporting of rape allegations and in the language used by some when talking about the subject.

Given that this proposal could deter victims from coming forward, we should work harder to explore other options that do not make a presumption about the likelihood that a complainant has lied about such a crime. Yesterday, Baroness Stern called for more work to be done to establish whether the existing guidance on anonymity in rape cases from the Association of Chief Police Officers has been followed, and if not, why not. I hope the Minister will also take up that point. Above all, I urge the House to search its soul in this debate. The question is not whether it is feasible to give some rape defendants anonymity and not others; we must ask why we are still struggling to bring those who commit such offences to justice and how we can address this problem. If we do that, we will see that proposals for anonymity are not part of the solution.

The problems are complex, but there are several indications of where action could be taken. I come to this debate as a London MP faced with extremely troubling statistics on the prosecution of rape in the capital which show that our conviction rate is well below the success rate in other metropolitan areas. That is why I welcome the move to Sapphire units and co-ordination across London. The reality is that staffing such units is especially hard in outer London, in areas such as mine, where officers receive little recognition for taking on such work, in contrast with other roles within our police force.

We should also learn from the Payne review and George Alberti’s research, and offer more support for victims. I would favour the extension of the role of independent sexual violence advisers as distinct from police or other criminal justice officers. We must also be mindful of the funding for rape crisis centres, which face a struggle for existence under the new Administration. Indeed, I fear, under the new Government’s public services spending freeze, that it will be harder, not easier, for specialised units for rape and sexual assault victims to improve conviction rates and bring rapists to justice, given that they are already under-staffed, under-resourced and lacking specialised rape lawyers. I hope that Ministers will today make a commitment, given their interest in this subject, to ensure that those services are properly funded and protected.

In conclusion, I urge the Government to turn their attention from the tabloid headlines, and instead focus on addressing these challenges. The Government’s proposal would give credence, without any evidentiary foundation, to the idea that lying is an aspect of this crime and not any other. I can see that others across the House agree with me, and I appeal to them to work with us to raise these concerns. As legislators, we must not send out the message, however unintended, that we think that those who come forward to report rape are more likely to mislead than any other alleged victim of crime. As members of society, we must work together to protect the vulnerable and hear the voices of victims with an open mind. A public consultation would guarantee and encourage that. I urge the Minister to change his mind and ensure that we hear those voices in this debate.