EU Referendum Rules

Debate between Tom Brake and David Lammy

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I am not going to give way, because I think I should make progress.

I have described the scale of the challenge for Parliament, and the truth is that if we are doing that we will not be doing other things.

[Tom Brake]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lammy]

I have said that I should make some progress. Others have got to get in to make important contributions.

The other point is that uncertainty is bad for business and our economy. Last week a survey by Lloyds found that business confidence has dropped to its lowest level since December 2011. Uncertainty in Government is also bad news. If the whole of Whitehall is focused on trying to work out Brexit and then on trying to deliver it, where will the capacity be to tackle many other urgent issues that the country faces—the crisis in the NHS, youth unemployment, infrastructure and the rebalancing of the economy? Last week massive cuts to apprenticeships were announced. We need working-class young people to move into apprenticeships. How are we going to achieve those things when every Department is consumed with the subject of Brexit?

I am here on behalf of my constituents, and that is why I am very clear about the issue. Ordinary working people on low incomes will suffer the most in the man-made recession to come. As always, people who are living pay cheque to pay cheque, just about keeping their heads above water and making ends meet in insecure jobs will bear the brunt of any economic downturn. When unemployment rises tax receipts will fall. NHS spending, wages and investment will fall, and after years of austerity the Government will not have the money for a fiscal stimulus, or to provide a proper welfare safety net. People have been talking about agricultural areas. In counties such as Norfolk, which relied on EU subsidies, some people have been asking “Are we still going to get the EU subsidies?”

The Riots

Debate between Tom Brake and David Lammy

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

This debate is rather circular, because the hon. Gentleman will understand that the kind of summer that we have had and the run-up to it have not done a great deal to encourage the very young people I need to join the police force to go out and do so. Nevertheless, I lay bare the scale of the problem.

Many of us here today will have landed in cities in America, looked at the police force and the local community, and thought, “Wow! I wish we had that here!” If it can be done on the streets of New York, it can be done here. That is what we need to learn from Bill Bratton, who has come to town. The same thing must be done here or I am afraid that our whole policing model will become very hard to maintain.

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

I agree entirely with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. However, in relation to New York, does he know whether there is evidence that the better representation of black and minority ethnic communities, for instance in the police force, automatically leads to more effective policing by consent?

[Mr Lammy]

Of course, serious issues remain for all police forces, particularly those policing urban areas, but at the heart of the discussion, as other hon. Members have said, is trust. I was a very young man and lawyer when the first round of debate about stop and search happened, and here we are—25 years later—still having that same debate. When will we put it to one side?

Let us look at the figures. Young black people are stopped and searched at seven times the rate of young white people, and some are stopped at 27 times the rate of young white people, particularly where there is a section 60 order in place. There is a section 60 order in place in my constituency. That issue is very real. I am not suggesting that we should abandon stop and search. It seems to me that those who argue for the abandonment of stop and search need to stop and think. The No. 1 issue that young people are raising in London is knife crime, and against that backdrop of course we must have stop and search. It is patently obvious that to keep young people feeling safe on their way to and from school, we must stop and search, but we must do it intelligently and with a police force that the broader community trusts. That is why the figures that I have cited in relation to the ethnic minority profile of the police are so crucial.

In addition, I am hugely critical of the decision effectively to downgrade stop and account, and stop and search. I still believe that when a police officer stops and searches someone, they should put down the name of the person that they stopped and they should certainly put down whether there has been any injury or damage as a consequence. I sat on the delegated legislation Committee dealing with the changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code and stop and search, and I listened to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice make arguments about bureaucracy, but I say to the Government that those are precisely the issues that undercut trust in the fact that stop and search can be done intelligently. That is leading to real antagonism among young men, particularly young black men in London.

I have been stopped and searched. I was stopped and searched during the last general election.

Gangs

Debate between Tom Brake and David Lammy

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The point I am making is that, two years ago, the assistant borough commander, the head of the youth service and her representatives, and representatives of social services, health services and schools were sat around the table—routinely, every month—discussing the group of young people who were getting caught up in this situation, and that funds were coming through to support that activity. I am afraid that they told me last week that that has ended. They are engaged—meeting voluntarily, every six weeks—because they are so concerned, but there is no statutory framework for that activity, and neither is there the support and diversion activity that needs to happen.

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate from his long experience that what those young people need is diversionary activity and intervention. That requires resources. If he speaks to colleagues in Waltham Forest—my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow might say something about this—he will hear that they are concerned about resources. I think that this is one area in which we can make the plea for resources, because the consequences of under-resourcing will cost us so much more. The co-ordination and resources that must rightly follow, so that those professionals can do their job, are essential.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is clearly drawing on his extensive experience. To return to the issue of youth offending, is he calling for ring-fenced funding from central Government to go to local authorities, or does he believe that local authorities themselves have a duty to prioritise youth offending funding within their budgets?

[Mr Lammy]

I am not calling for prescription; it is not for me to prescribe how this should be done. That must be a matter for the Government. What I am saying is that this is a priority and a real issue in London. Youth services are being cut and reduced across London. It is easy to make the point that the London borough of Haringey, for example, should prioritise youth services at a time when it has to cut £40 million in year from its budget. I am worried, however, that I will be here with colleagues next year and that the figures will have gone in the wrong direction, because we will have been unable to prioritise the service.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, although I do not recognise a picture that suggests that gangs were behind this summer’s rioting and social unrest, it is clear that gang members were part of it. I have spoken to the manager of JD Sports in Tottenham retail centre and to the manager of Comet. I have also looked at some of the video and pictures of complete lawlessness, which ran for more than five or six hours—there were more young people in that shop that night, looting and robbing, than during the day—and I do not want my constituents to get accustomed to such things, because that would be dangerous for any society—those events have to be a one-off. Those charged with intervening in, dispersing and engaging with often chaotic families, as well as those who co-ordinate pupil referral units and ensure that young people in care are properly provided for, who work with families, who think about a living wage and about our economy, and who ask hard questions about where the jobs are in a constituency such as Tottenham, recognise that this is important.

Although I am pleased that the Government have said that they want to prioritise the issue, as a Back Bencher I want to scrutinise how that is done. We should, of course, speak to those from across the pond who have experience in this area, but I have now been the MP for Tottenham for 12 years and, when I began, knife crime and gangs were certainly not a major phenomenon of the capital city. In those days, the caricature was of yardie gangs—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington will recall reading about them in the papers.

The situation has changed completely and we have a decision to make: are we going to see gangs and that terrible youth violence as a permanent phenomenon of our economy and country, as in parts of downtown America? We are on a cusp. We can either get over the problem with proper, co-ordinated quality effort, or I am afraid that it will be a permanent phenomenon of our modern economy.

Young Offenders

Debate between Tom Brake and David Lammy

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Westminster Hall

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing this debate. As I said in an intervention, he has made a thoughtful and meticulously researched contribution—indeed, possibly even a liberal with a small l contribution. His emphasis on early intervention and ensuring that there is proper assessment of learning and communication difficulties among young offenders was a strong point.

I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who made a strong contribution based on his experience as a Minister. I did not disagree with anything that he said, including his last point about the impact of cuts on youth services. We must be cautious about that, because of the potential for significant negative knock-on effects.

I apologise to you, Mr Streeter, and to others, because I must leave early to sit on a Statutory Instrument Committee that is looking at licensing hours in relation to the royal wedding. Clearly, we hope that more people will not join the criminal justice system as a result of extended licensing hours and their drinking longer and harder than they might otherwise have done.

The backdrop to what we are discussing must surely be, to some extent, public perceptions of young people. Members may be familiar with a YouGov poll commissioned by Barnardo’s that was conducted at the end of 2008. It found that nearly half the adults regarded children as increasingly dangerous to each other and to their elders, while 43% feel that

“something has to be done”

to protect society from children and young people. It is a sad indictment against not young people but adults, society and, perhaps, the media that we have arrived at a point where the perception of young people is as negative as that.

The poll goes on to state:

“The British public overestimates, by a factor of four, the amount of crime committed by young people.”

I wonder to what extent that perception affects sentencing policy. If people think that young people are committing four times as much crime as they actually commit, that may be reflected in the sentences that are handed out.

That is the perception, but, interestingly, the number of children in custody has fallen by one third since 2002, from 3,175 to just more than 2,000. That goes against the perceptions that that poll revealed, and may explain to some extent the fall to which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys referred in terms of young people accessing services. Fewer children are going into the custody system.

That is the backdrop, and I shall now address the issue. A couple of months ago, I organised a sentencing round table. I invited many of the organisations involved in youth justice to come and suggest how to enhance the proposals in the Green Paper and to propose additional measures. They stressed the importance of the emphasis on diversion, discretion and judgment in what happens with children who go into the youth custody system. As an aside to the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I hope that he will stick to his humanitarian instincts and consider why an age of criminal responsibility of 14 might be the appropriate course of action. Indeed, at the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference on Saturday, I shall open a debate on a motion that proposes precisely that.

The organisations had concerns about whether the Green Paper focused enough on custody of young people, and there was a lot of enthusiasm about what is happening to youth custody in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that, and confirm whether the Government are considering that as a way forward. Northern Ireland has far fewer children in the prison estate.

The organisations also focused on the need to address learning difficulties and mental disorders, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said. He rightly drew on the briefing of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists—at least, I am drawing on it—and referred to the asset system, which is the tool designed to assess young people. The concern, as the hon. Gentleman has said, is that it is not designed to identify learning difficulties or communication disabilities. I have a specific question for the Minister. Can that system be looked at to ensure that it is adjusted so that it can do precisely that? As he has said, it is a significant issue. Current evidence shows that 60% of young offenders have such severe communication disabilities that they cannot access prison education programmes. I agree with the right hon. Member for Tottenham that good, strong educational programmes in prisons are key, but they could go further in allowing offenders to obtain qualifications.

When I visited the prison in the Minister’s constituency, the point was made that it is all very well an offender achieving an NVQ level 1, but they need to go further if they are to be competitive in the job market when they come out. Appropriate courses must be available. That prison—Highdown—has a gym, where prisoners like to go, and perhaps they should be able to achieve some qualifications in gym work that they could use when they come out.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham was right to say that employers need to do more, and I am sure that he will be familiar with National Grid’s scheme, which is fantastically successful. It trains prisoners, and its experience is that on release, because they take up a guaranteed job at the end of the training, they are less likely than the general population to offend. That is a real success story, and I wish other employers would emulate it.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that National Grid’s scheme works because the young offenders have often had day release or been out on tagging. Some of the public storm in the tabloids about young people leaving institutions must stop if such schemes are to work.

[Tom Brake]

That is a significant point, but unfortunately, there is an element of risk. The right hon. Gentleman was a Minister, so he will know that there may be occasions when something happens on day release, but overall the impact is positive. The Government must be willing to accept that there will be some risk, and that there may be some negative publicity if something regrettable happens, but the overall contribution of such schemes is positive, which is what must be borne in mind.

Other matters that were raised at the round table include transition, which is significant. When young people go from the youth estate into the adult estate, it is a huge leap, and that transition must be much smoother. That applies not just to 17-year-olds going into the prison estate, but to 18 to 21-year-olds, because many of them are not able to go into the normal adult estate without additional support.

An issue concerning young adults to which the Minister may wish to respond is that the law is being disregarded and they are mixed up in adult prisons. The law is clear, but I understand that it is not being applied. Another significant point that was made at the round table is the need for early intervention and early investment.

I have some additional proposals that I hope the Minister will consider. The police should be allowed discretion in how they tackle youth offending, perhaps adopting a problem-solving approach rather than unnecessarily arresting young people when they admit responsibility. It should be recognised that the criminal courts are not necessarily the most effective environment in which to deal with children, particularly those under 14 when, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys has said, they often do not have the slightest idea what they are going through in the court system, because it is too complex and completely opaque to them.

We must decriminalise children when they should be treated as victims, such as child prostitutes, and we should protect young people who are criminalised for victimless crimes. I am thinking specifically of consensual sexual acts between those under 16. On restorative justice, I hope that the Minister will respond on the Northern Ireland proposals.

As hon. Members have stressed, it is important to give local authorities responsibility for custody costs, so that there is a clear and strong incentive for them to invest in youth services, as the right hon. Member for Tottenham has said, if they can see a clear correlation, which I am sure that there is, between investment in youth services and a reduction in the number of young offenders going into custody with all the charges and costs associated with that.

This debate has been positive with well thought-through contributions, and I hope that the Minister will respond in kind; I am sure that he will.

Housing Need (London)

Debate between Tom Brake and David Lammy

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who has a long history of bringing to this place for discussion matters on which Opposition Members work as a team. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck)—I hope that she catches your eye, Mr Howarth—also has a long history of bringing such matters to this place.

As London MPs, we are not here to suggest that we have cracked housing issues in London. We all have a long track record of campaigning on them, and understanding them, largely because we know from our constituency surgeries that London is a tale of two cities—the two cities that my father found when he arrived here in 1956. He shared a one-bedroom flat with a small paraffin heater in Finsbury Park with five others. He is not with us today, but I know he is pleased that I now have a big house in Finsbury Park. That is the progress of immigration.

All of us in the Chamber have large homes, and all of us have employment, but we are here because either we are moving incrementally forward on housing or moving backwards. The Budget and its housing benefit issues will move us backwards. I predict that the result of the exodus from inner London to outer London will be equivalent to what happened in the Parisian suburbs and there will be social unrest in three or four years. It is right to put that on the record. That will be the consequence of the social cleansing of inner London. It is patently clear to all Members of Parliament who represent London constituencies that the face of homelessness, particularly in London, is a black and ethnic minority one. Those are the people who will be cast out of Westminster, Islington, Camden and Hackney to find their way and their homes as they will, against a backdrop of existing acute housing need in London.

We have a Mayor who is not committed to building the necessary affordable homes in the city. Looking at the list of Conservative local authorities, I find it pathetic that only 200 affordable homes were built in Westminster in the last year for which we have figures; just 100 were built in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea and, even worse, in Richmond only 127 were built. Those authorities have the space and the opportunity, but over that period their attitude to building affordable homes was poor. That is the backdrop against which people will suffer.

Last Friday, an event was organised by the charity, TreeHouse, which supports families with young children on the autistic spectrum. I spent the afternoon on the Broadwater Farm estate with the Uddin family. I collected their son, Adil, from Broadwater Farm primary school, to be close to the family as they deal with their five-year-old’s serious autistic needs. There are eight of them and they live in a two-bedroom flat, which is typical of housing need in my constituency. My message to that poor family with six children is that their disability living allowance will probably be cut by the present Administration, so despite having a three-week-old child, they can forget any possibility of receiving the baby or toddler element of the child tax credit, because that will go too. Mr Uddin makes representations to me about housing need, but against a backdrop of 3,471 people on the temporary accommodation list in the London borough of Haringey and, as we speak, 818 in emergency accommodation, it is very unlikely that the family will be able to move from their two-bedroom flat, despite the fact that eight of them live there. Even worse, the new Government, because of their attitude to economic matters, has deemed that the housing pressure in our London borough is set to become even worse.

Opposition Members believe passionately that despite the tough economic times, the way through is to invest and to determine growth. This is an opportunity for a new deal arrangement for our country, and Liberal Democrat Members should remember the opportunities that Lloyd George put in place with his people’s Budget. It is a disgrace that hon. Members who represent areas such as Hornsey and Wood Green, and Bermondsey, where there are poor and needy constituents, support a Budget that will result in an exodus and social unrest. It is a disgrace.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lammy]

No, I will not give way. We have heard enough from the hon. Gentleman and, frankly, it was pretty poor.

One in eight people on housing benefit is unemployed, but many are workers—cleaners, shop workers, hospital porters and so on. The pressure that the Budget will put on them is unacceptable. It is a disgrace, and will lead to the sort of social unrest that I and my constituents saw in 1985 when unemployment was 20% in the constituency, and probably 40% among black people. We will see that again with the cutting of the future jobs fund alongside the ridiculous, nasty policy that underpins the Government.

[Mr Mike Hancock in the Chair]