Sport and Youth Crime

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate. I hope that hon. Members will not feel too much of a sense of déjà vu after I have finished, because I will make many of the points that he has already made, although I will use examples that are local to me in order to illustrate them.

The debate’s title could have been recast and centred on the effect of sports leaders on youth crime, because I think that sports leaders are what really do it in terms of reducing crime. Clearly, the sport itself plays a part, but I think it is the sports leaders who have the impact, and that is because of the discipline that they can instil, their important mentoring role, and the values that they demonstrate in leading young people, whatever their sporting activity. The Government have to get on top of the mentoring role. I believe that there is an issue about which Government Department should take responsibility for mentors. There is a clear need for them in, I would suggest, large numbers, but there seem to be difficulties in securing them, so that is an area for the Government to focus on.

Sport is also central to reducing youth crime and engaging young people in positive diversionary activities. Sport is all about team play—working together with others—which might be something that they have not experienced before. Moreover, exercise undoubtedly helps address the anger management issues that some young people may have—it is a lot harder to be angry after three hours of intense sporting activity. Sport is also about sportsmanship and being able to demonstrate to other young people the value of fair play. Wrapped up in all that is the issue of diet. Addressing dietary failures is necessary not only to succeed at sport at almost any level, but particularly if alcohol is an issue.

There are many examples of very successful sports schemes—or schemes that use sport, which are slightly different—that are used to tackle criminal behaviour or reduce the risk of offending. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Kickz, which is a very good project, and I will refer to a couple of statistics that highlight its success. There has been a 60% reduction in antisocial behaviour in areas in which Kickz is active, and up to a 20% reduction in the crimes that are most often associated with young people. Clearly, the project has the metrics to demonstrate that it is successful, but, like the hon. Gentleman, I think there is an issue about being able to demonstrate what types of projects are in fact successful. Anecdotal evidence is, of course, very good, but if the Government, the voluntary sector and charities, or social entrepreneurs want to invest in something, we need more than anecdotal evidence to support what is and what is not successful.

I am fortunate to have Cricket for Change based in my constituency. It does a lot of work on street cricket and engaging young people, both boys and girls, in it. Such is the success of its programmes that it has exported them to other countries around the world, such as Jamaica, Sri Lanka and South Africa, so it has taken the idea to challenging deprived areas and has bound people together. It has just finished a three-year programme targeting the 10 communities in London with the highest levels of youth crime. I want to see what that project’s metrics say about the outcomes, because it may have been very successful.

Another local project is Community Inspirations, the importance of which is that it can provide wraparound for some young people who have fallen out of education. They may, for instance, be training locally at the Skills and Integrated Learning Centre—SILC—in plastering, tiling and other skills. There is often an issue about what they do during the school holidays. The typical activities of organisations such as Community Inspirations centre on sport. It often takes a group of young people who may never have stepped outside their postcode to another part of the country to meet other young people and play in competitions. It is having an important impact.

I had a chance meeting last night on my way to the Akash Tandoori, an establishment that I would recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Wallington. It is run by Yawar Khan, who is the president of the Federation of Bangladeshi Caterers and with whom I do a lot of work. Incidentally, I think that the Government and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government could perhaps give him credit for the idea of setting up a curry college in the UK, because he and his federation have been pushing for it for a number of years. He certainly sees the value in training young people here, as opposed to bringing them over from abroad. I will not pursue that line of inquiry, because its link with sport is tenuous.

Mr Khan was hosting a fundraiser for the Royal Marsden at which I happened to meet Mike Fleet, who runs Croydon Harriers. It takes its role in education very seriously, to the extent that when it takes young people on a coach to an athletics meet, the team managers go around and ask the young people, “Where’s your homework? Are you doing it? Do you need some help with your Spanish?” It is, therefore, very hands-on in its support for those young people, as well as in coaching them in their sporting activities and techniques.

I asked Mike why he thought sport was successful and whether it was because the young people win and it gives them a sense of worth. He replied that that was not necessarily the reason, because, of course, they do not all win. He said that it is actually about things such as feeling that they are part of a family. They see a group of young people and adults on a regular basis who can provide them with support. Croydon Harriers work with a range of young people, from perhaps some of the most challenging in Croydon to pupils from Whitgift—whose behaviour I do not think is particularly challenging—and provide them with support and a family environment. In fact, they will often bring in a young person’s actual family and provide an environment in which they can work together, with sport as the coalescing factor. Young people can also see their own progress—they start out achieving a certain distance or time and can then monitor their progress and realise that they are taking positive steps.

Members may not have expected this, but the final project that I would like to mention is the work of the Angling Trust on urban fishing and getting young people from areas that we would least expect involved in fishing. However, a blogger responded to my suggestion that this was a good thing by saying that they did not want oiks to ruin their fishing, so there may be some issues about ensuring that regular fishermen and women do not feel threatened, but the project has an important part to play.

I have given examples of some very good schemes. Finally, I would like to go over the same ground as the hon. Gentleman. There are statistics and hard facts about what is successful, and a lot of anecdotal evidence, but we need to channel that into a strong body of evidence on which the Government and other groups can base decisions about what types of sports schemes they should support. That is true for the whole area of criminal justice, for crime prevention and detection, and for sport. I understand that a sports think-tank has just been set up. Andy Reed, who used to be the Member of Parliament for Loughborough, Lord Addington and a Conservative peer whose name, unfortunately, I cannot remember are on that think-tank. That organisation may want to consider the matter in terms of pulling together the evidence. We need some joined-up government.

This is my last point. We know that the cost of sending people to prison is £40,000, and up to—who knows?—£200,000 for a very secure establishment. We want to see some hard facts about the success of these projects in diverting young people away from crime, so that we can offset the expenditure on those projects against the savings that will be derived by having fewer young people in our prisons. If the Government can achieve that, there will be a substantial improvement in our understanding of how we can tackle these problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate and on speaking with great expertise and clear conviction about the importance not just of sport, which is something that we can all agree on, but specifically the role that sport can play in reducing youth crime. It is a profitable subject to debate and some positive contributions have been made. I noted with a certain amount of concern his suggestion that there needs to be a lead Minister to co-ordinate across government. He plainly put in a credible bid for his own potential role in that respect, so some of us will have to watch ourselves very carefully.

We should acknowledge that most young people are not involved in crime. Often in our debates—for example, in yesterday’s debate about the causes of the riots—we ignore the fact that the vast majority of young people do not engage in crime. Sport has a value to them, which is separate to our discussion this morning. It is also important to state that, apart from recognising the value that sport may have for reducing crime, we are committed, as I am sure the previous Government were, to reducing youth crime. That will continue to be important for the communities affected by crime. We must prevent young people getting drawn into a life of crime and into a cycle of criminality from which it can be difficult to escape. Providing routes out and choices, which are so important at an early age, is what this debate has been about. Indeed, there was a lot of discussion about that in the context of the riots. What positive or alternative options can be given to young people who may otherwise be drawn into criminality? What alternative structures, as it were, can be offered?

[Tom Brake]

On the subject of routes out, does the Minister have the capacity to look at what sporting and diversionary activities the authorities in areas where the riots took place are planning? In Croydon, 500 people were arrested and 400 charged. I suspect that 200 or 300 will have gone to prison. They will be coming back to Croydon, because 80% of them were from Croydon. It is important that the Government monitor what will be in place to take those people on board when they return.

[Nick Herbert]

We will come to a discussion about who is responsible for providing such activity. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) described somebody who had gone into what he felt was a cul-de-sac as a result of gang activity, but boxing had been the avenue out. Routes out are important. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) spoke about the route that he found out of what might have been an alternative career option such as his friends pursued, which was time spent detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He has found a different course, although many would suggest that there is not much difference between that role and that of his friends.

Nevertheless, there has been general agreement in the debate. There has been no dispute about the value of sport in having a positive impact on behaviour. It teaches control, self-discipline and the importance of teamwork. It unites people and provides opportunities for people, wherever they come from. Sporting activity is of huge value in preventing offending. Where offending has taken place, sport can play an enormous part as an intervention to break the cycle that I described. We must be careful to ensure that it is not the only intervention. There may be other causes of offending behaviour that need to be addressed in parallel. Whether there are learning difficulties or various addictions, sport can be one of the means to help an offender, but other interventions may be equally important.

There was also agreement about the importance of role models, particularly the powerful role models provided in sport. Such role models can of course provide a catalyst for change. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about the particular value of sports leaders, but I am sure he did not mean to imply that those were simply national sports leaders. Of course, national figures in sport, as mentioned by other Members, have a significant impact on young people. The mentors described by my right hon. Friend work at local level and come from all sorts of places. They can show a leadership role, and assist and encourage young people to engage in sporting activity. That is equally important.

I spoke recently to a police community support officer who, in addition to his community work, devotes much of his private time to working with young people and providing coaching in local sporting activities. He felt that it was important to assist those young people to take part in a constructive activity that would prevent them from getting into trouble. Such volunteers and local heroes matter just as much as national role models; I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) when she said that it was important to fly the flag for volunteers, and to celebrate them and recognise what they do.