Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend brings his experience as a special constable to the Chamber, and I am grateful for his service. We are clear that stop and search is a vital policing tool, and we are committed to tackling knife crime. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act officers already have the power to search an individual they suspect to be carrying a knife. We therefore believe the current arrangements to be proportionate, but we will keep them under review and continue to work closely with the police to ensure they have the tools they need. I will be happy to meet him to discuss it further.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary announced in September that the Government would adopt a public health approach to tackling knife crime, a measure recommended by the Youth Violence Commission following strong evidence that it works. When will the House be given the opportunity to debate this vital issue?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady and other hon. Members on both sides of the House for their work with the Youth Violence Commission. She will know from our scrutiny of the Offensive Weapons Bill how seriously we take the public health approach—we looked at it through the development of the serious violence strategy. She will know there was a debate before the summer recess on serious violence, but I am always happy, as she knows, to debate how we help to support our police forces in tackling this terrible crime.

Offensive Weapons Bill (First sitting)

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Can we move on? We are not going to get everybody in otherwise.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Q My question is primarily for Rob Owen, but others can chip in. It is about ex-gang members working with young people. If I look to the “Scared Straight” programme, for example, young people involved in that were between 1.1% and 2.6% more likely to get involved in criminal activity using knives and so on. I have not yet seen any evidence that supports ex-gang members advertising themselves as ex-gang members working with young people and having any positive outcomes.

Rob Owen: I think “Scared Straight” was a disaster. It is not something in which we believe in any way, shape or form. It was targeted at the wrong people. If you want evidence then please go to our website. It features people like PwC, Pro Bono Economics and Frontier Economics, who can demonstrate that using ex-offenders with that client group reduces reoffending rates by a further 40%. I would be pleased to talk you through it. There are robust evaluations on the St Giles Trust and our SOS work. We pride ourselves on this.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q To carry on with that: it is a narrow group, not a wide one.

Rob Owen: That is for different services. We have had multiple evaluations.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q Exiting gang members is slightly different.

Rob Owen: Using people’s lived experiences to work with complicated young people has a massive impact on reducing their reoffending rates. I would love you to read through the reports; they are all on our website.

Offensive Weapons Bill (Second sitting)

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth]

Q Do you have a view about licensing?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: It is not something on which, at the moment, we have an evidential picture to put either way.

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: We have replied to the NPCC consultation, and it is a bit like with some of the aspects in this Bill. I think a lot of it comes down to community tolerance, public tolerance and the tolerance of Parliament. There are a lot of arguments in relation to air weapon risks and dangers. If you look at what happened when Scotland changed its legislation, more than 20,000 weapons were surrendered for a population of 4 million. As with the antiques, we have no idea exactly how many air weapons are in the rest of England and Wales, but extrapolating that number from Scotland would indicate that there is a significant number out there. I think it is a matter for Parliament and its tolerance of risk.

From a licensing perspective, were those weapons to be placed on certificate for England and Wales, that would place a significant burden on firearm licensing departments, which are already processing more requirements and checks in order to ensure that the right people have what we have already established is a significant number of shotguns and firearms.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Q Is there anything that you think should be included in the Bill to ensure that fewer guns are used in violence—gang violence, youth violence and so on? Is resourcing an issue for your different departments and areas? I have just been looking through the consultation document you submitted. What we have is quite vague, so I wonder whether you have more information to give us about that.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: In terms of the criminal use of firearms, we obviously see quite a broad range of firearms used. We see firearms that we class as being of UK origin, which have been here since the war days and were here when the legislation was changed, and we see firearms that are smuggled in from abroad and used in crime. We see quite a mix around the criminal use of firearms. I do not have a breakdown to give you, but it is quite a mixed picture, and it changes daily.

In terms of resources—I can speak only for the National Ballistics Intelligence Service—I have just secured an uplift in resources from the National Police Chiefs Council, so we are actually growing to cope with the increasing challenge of the criminal use of firearms.

Gregg Taylor: I would only add what I have already mentioned about ammunition. Again, guns are useless without ammunition, so ammunition is the key to some of the problems we see. There is a lack of control and legislation around purchasing and acquiring ammunition components. People can freely acquire all the equipment they need to make ammunition; the offence kicks in only once you have made a round.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q So your feedback is that it might be useful to extend the Bill to cover all ammunition and other parts and components?

Gregg Taylor: Yes. Obviously, this is focusing on particular weaknesses and threats around certain firearms, but in my area of work—I see criminal use of firearms day in, day out—ammunition is a massive key, and it is not part of the Bill.

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: On your question about resourcing, on the legal side it is a matter for local chief constables to decide—with their police and crime commissioners, obviously—what resources they put into their firearms licensing departments. There are steps to go through in the issuing of a shotgun or a firearms certificate. As time goes on, those steps tend to increase because of external scrutiny, cases that have taken place and our access to information. One of the largest challenges we have at the moment is accessing medical records for people who apply. GPs’ responses to their local police forces are very patchy, so that is a significant administrative burden.

There are quite a lot of steps to go through to actually acquire your firearm or shotgun, and then there is the renewal process that goes with that. Those administrative processes happen day in, day out in all your local police forces. As is often the case in this sort of area of business, it is very often only when something goes wrong or is examined by a coroner that we start to learn lessons, but we are constantly improving in this space. As we improve, the requirements tend to be extended because we look into more things. At the moment, we are working with Dorset police on how far we should go into people’s family histories—how far we should interview people and go into those depths. There is an amount of proportionality to be put into it as well.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q Excuse my ignorance on that point, but somebody cannot have a firearm while they are going through those steps, can they?

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: If you are an initial applicant, no. You have to wait until you have been issued the certificate before you can go to a dealer and say, “I’ve been authorised to purchase the following firearms,” and carry out your transaction.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q But in the case of reissuing, you can still have one until your certificate is reissued?

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: Yes, in essence. There are various protections, but it is that cycle over a five-year period.

Mark Groothuis: Could I just clarify something in relation to ammunition and component parts? There is a restriction on the sale of primers, which are one of the main component parts of ammunition. If you want to buy primers, you should be producing a firearms certificate or shotgun certificate, to show that the type of primer that you are requiring is suitable for use in the type of gun you have. In relation to the powder that is used in the ammunition—we refer to that as shooter’s powder—there are restrictions on the side of shooter’s powder. Retailers of shooter’s powder should be looking to see that the person buying it is the holder of a firearms certificate, a shotgun certificate, a temporary permit or a visitor’s permit, or is a firearms dealer. It is difficult to tell whether that is happening.

In respect of the ammunition, as Gregg has said, I think we need to go further, in so much as we find people with the primers. The possession of a primer is not an offence. Possession of the cartridge case is not an offence. Possession of bullet heads is not an offence. With the question of the powder, there probably is an offence, but it is one of those offences hidden in the explosives regulations and it is difficult to actually prosecute. If we had a new offence for possession of component parts with intent to manufacture, that would assist us greatly. We do not have that at the moment.

Gregg Taylor: If I can just add to that, there are some types of ammunition—one of those mentioned is shotgun ammunition, possession of which is actually exempt—which we have seen historically in criminal use. People will utilise the components of things like blanks and shotgun cartridges, which are exempt. Even though the sell and purchase of primers may be controlled to some degree, there are other ways around sourcing these key components, via things such as shotgun cartridges and blanks, and utilising the propellants from those as well.

Mark Groothuis: It is actually relatively easy to obtain shotgun ammunition. If you want to purchase it, you must produce a shotgun certificate, but I can give shotgun ammunition to a person who is 18 or above without a shotgun certificate. In theory anyone in this room could possess up to 15 kg net explosive quantity of shotgun cartridges, which is a huge quantity—probably in excess of 10,000 rounds—with no certification at all. The controls around shotgun ammunition are particularly loose. The control is there to purchase, but not to be given. As Gregg has said, if you have shotgun ammunition, you can take the shooter’s powder out of it and use it for other purposes.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q Mr Lynn, would you like to add anything?

Christopher Lynn: I am not sure I have anything to add.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Q I have a slightly non-technical, subjective question. How easy is it in your assessment to obtain a gun for criminal purposes in this country?

Gregg Taylor: I keep mentioning the word “antique”, but I could literally find one on the internet tonight and buy one from a dealer. I will have a fully working firearm in my hand within 24 hours. The issue, as I have said, is finding the ammunition or making the ammunition to fit. As you have just discussed, there are ways around that. Again, you can buy all the components on the internet.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: Two weeks ago I held the national annual criminal use of firearms conference. I invited a guest speaker, who is a former gang member, who has been convicted and sentenced for firearms offences. He came and gave a presentation. His view was that it is very easy to obtain firearms and ammunitions. He thought he could go and obtain them, no problem at all. From a street perspective—for a criminal, or someone who is aware of that world—the perspective was that it is very easy.

Christopher Lynn: I think it is about exploiting opportunities, and criminality is very good at identifying and exploiting weaknesses. That is why we see a lot of conversion of signal/alarm pistols, which are lawful in a lot of European member states, but unlawful in the UK. The criminal perception is that they can convert these, and we have seen many examples of conversion of those sorts of things. Those involved exploit the conditional exemption on antique firearms. They are looking for weaknesses, really. With the uplift in the use of shotguns, the presumption is that that is a theft issue. We have talked about the ease of acquisition of shotgun cartridges and ammunition, which is an exploitation of vulnerability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q I think it was you, Detective Chief Superintendent, that said that there was already a lot of pressure on these teams. Does that pressure manifest itself just in longer waits for people wanting licences to get those licences? Or is there an increased risk of people who should not have licences retaining their licences or, indeed, of people gaining licences when they should not have them in the first place?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: I think David Orford will answer that. I do not have anything to do with the licensing side—I deal with the criminal side.

Assistant Chief Constable Orford: I would not say that there is increased pressure per se, but the volume does place an increased demand. Forces have to look at the breadth of their information systems and what is proportionate. Some forces have moved to telephone renewals, and in certain circumstances that might be absolutely appropriate. If you have held a shotgun certificate for 30 years and there has been no issue on any of your certification at all—our information systems are a lot better than they were 30 years ago—then it is probably appropriate that you receive a telephone renewal, because you get a better service and you are a more satisfied customer. It means we can move our resources on to the people where we should actually be lifting up a few more stones. Previously, we would apply a one-size-fits-all approach.

When I was a beat officer, I was the one who used to get the firearms inquiries, with no training and no requirements. It was an automatic assumption: “You are a police officer, and therefore you will know.” It would consist of trying to pull the cabinet off the wall. That was the limit of my firearms inquiry knowledge then. Now, we have the College of Policing training programme coming online, we have continuing professional development, and we have closer working with the operational side of policing and much better access to information systems. Forces are having to flex and adapt, but it would be fair to say that the increased volume and numbers in terms of the types of checks has put quite a bit of pressure on them.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q In terms of serious violence, we often talk about preventive early intervention and so forth. Are there any early intervention or preventive measures that you think we could put into place that would help reduce the number of firearms in circulation?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: As part of the criminal use of firearms portfolio, we have an independent advisory group. At our last meeting a few weeks ago, there was quite a discussion on serious violence. The members of the independent advisory group feel that there is quite a lot to be done around tackling serious violence—they may be the people we could point you in the direction of for their views. They come from a wide background, whether it is youth work, academia, community safety or working in schools. They have quite a few views and suggestions around the prevention side of things.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q I have probably done quite a lot of work on this in terms of stuff with the Youth Violence Commission. Are there areas where you could have extra support and so forth, so that, rather than having to always be taking things out of circulation, you are actually getting in there early to make sure we do not end up with them there?

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: One of the key issues the independent advisory group were discussing was the lack of consistency. Programmes start, things dwindle as offences drop, and then it is like a cycle, with things increasing and interventions being put in place. It is very much about getting in there at early ages in schools. We spoke to the ex-offender that came to present at the CUF conferences. He was saying, “Get to them at age 10 and 11.” In terms of that prevention work and those life choices, I know there are good packages out there that can be delivered to educate people and try that Prevent side.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q Sorry, I am referring to the 70% of firearms that are legally in circulation, and whether or not there are ways and means of getting in there to ensure that they are not in circulation.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: We have carried out national surrenders to try to get people to surrender firearms, and they are quite successful. The last national surrender, which was part of the Prevent tactic, was in November last year, and we saw a 74% increase in firearms surrendered by the public across England and Wales. There are those sorts of preventive measures, but my experience with serious and organised crime investigations is that if offenders have firearms and ammunition, that is a commodity that they can either sell on or trade, or that they want to keep for their own business. We do have national tactics such as surrenders, and we try to encourage people to hand firearms in.

Christopher Lynn: I presume you are talking about measures aimed at targeting populations rather than the commodity itself—is that the case? These measures are largely threat reduction and vulnerability reduction measures in their own right. I would be talking outside my expertise if I talked about people management and criminality.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q I am talking about whether there is enough joined-up working with border agencies and so forth. I am not an expert in this area, which is why I am reaching out to you to see what you think.

Detective Chief Superintendent Chilton: In terms of intelligence, we act—whether that is the police in the National Crime Agency or Border Force—to take firearms out of hands on the street. That intelligence-led activity takes place, but the wider Prevent programme is to try to stop people getting into gun violence in the first place.

[The Chair]

Are you content, Vicky?

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Yes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Finally, Vicky Foxcroft.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Q I want to come back to the knives being locked away or behind counters. If the Bill makes it a legal requirement to do that, what would be the challenges?

Graham Wynn: Mainly where to put them, where to lock them away. There would be a need to have a shop assistant who is trained and has a key and can get access and show the customer exactly what is available. It depends a bit on what sort of knife we are talking about. If we are talking about cutlery, I hope we can put that to one side. Then you decide whether it applies to kitchen knives and that sort of thing and things that many law-abiding citizens would want. It is mainly a matter of convenience, but if it came in, retailers would clearly comply, as they do with fireworks, hopefully.

Vin Vara: Retailers in the hardware section in our group would find it very difficult to put everything behind lock and key. We already put them behind the counter, especially cutlery and long fixed knives. With small tools, the Stanley knives and retractable knives and all that, we would not know what to do. Our retailers do not have big spaces or anything like that—it could be anything from 400 square foot to 2,000 square foot units. Space would be the biggest problem, and training the staff, having the right staff with the right keys at the right time if the supervisor is on a break or if they have to sell something, so they are looking for it. There could be lots of things. We will have to adapt some way or another, but we need to make the range of knives clear when saying which need to go in a cabinet—a fixed knife, folding knife, flexible knife, flick knife, game knives. There is a big range to put in.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

When I go round my constituency in Lewisham, Deptford and go into many of those hardware stores, I always see the knives freely available and that people could very easily go and steal them. You are hinting at, but maybe not meaning to—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. Mr Wynn, Mr Vara, thank you very much for your evidence. It has been most useful to the Committee. There being a Division of the House, we will now adjourn the Committee and meet again on Thursday at 11.30.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that that is greatly reassuring for the hon. Gentleman.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

This Wednesday, the Youth Violence Commission will publish its interim policy report. Last year, knife crime increased by 22% and, in London, we have had another tragic spate of stabbings over the weekend. We must urgently seek long-term solutions. Will the Secretary of State commit to engaging with the recommendations of the cross-party Youth Violence Commission?

[Sajid Javid]

First, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this issue. I can assure her that we are doing everything we can working not just across parties, but with a number of groups that have a lot to contribute. We have already made a commitment to work with the all-party parliamentary group. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), is doing just that, and we are very happy to listen to its suggestions.

Immigration: Pausing the Hostile Environment

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I am sure that he was desperately trying to work out where Nokes came from. [Interruption.] I do not know. It is my ex-husband’s name. It is really important that we acknowledge, celebrate and recognise the contribution that immigrants have made to our country, to our community and to our society, and I do that. I hope that, over the coming months when we get to debate the immigration Bill, people will remember that.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents in Lewisham and Deptford have been victims of the hostile environment for far too long, waiting years for visas, not having service standards met and not being able to get any sort of update from the Home Office. Does the Minister accept that pausing the hostile environment is far too little and too late for many of my constituents, and should not the Government now be ending it for good?

[Caroline Nokes]

The compliant environment provides some important policies that enable us to distinguish between those who are here legally and those who are not. As I said in response to an earlier question, this was something that commenced many years ago, under a different Government, and it is absolutely right that we should be able to check that those who are accessing benefits and services have the right to do so.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

Yes, and I was not trying to suggest otherwise, but, as I have laid out, the number of crimes using repurposed weapons has increased significantly over the past 10 years, so it is clear that in considering the Bill we should look into how we can restrict the availability of decommissioned weapons.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

On the subject of a victims law, Sharon Fearon is the mother of Shaquan, a young boy who was murdered in my constituency, and there was never a conviction in that case. Sharon and I met Minister after Minister, including the Attorney General, and the one thing we were promised was that there would be a victims law and that their voices would be heard.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend has done sterling work over the past three years on youth violence, and particularly on the rights of victims, and her work is one of the reasons we think it is so important to strengthen the rights of victims through this Bill. I hope that we can do that on a cross-party basis, given the promises that were made in the 2015 and 2017 Conservative manifestos.

We would like to see a recognition that the rights of victims should be paramount, so we want consideration to be given to the introduction of an independent advocate, in line with the recommendations of the Victims’ Commissioner, to help victims of serious crime to navigate the range of services in the aftermath of a serious crime. With fewer than one in five violent crimes resulting in a charge, we will seek to legally entrench a victim’s right to a review of a decision by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service not to bring criminal charges or to discontinue a case. With homicide rates surging, Labour will also seek to provide national standards for the periodic review of homicide cases, because many families are deeply concerned at how cases can often be left to gather dust, with nobody brought to justice.

In the debate around serious violence, it is vital that the rights of victims are not forgotten. The aftermath of such an incident is traumatic and disorienting, with victims who are struggling to deal with their own personal trauma forced to navigate the at times baffling criminal justice system. As the number of victims of serious incidents is growing, now is the time to strengthen their rights.

I confirm again that we support the measures before us and will seek to be as constructive as possible in enhancing them. I hope that as deliberations on the Bill continue, we can have a full debate about adverse childhood experiences and the consequent policy considerations, such as trauma-informed policing and schooling, and about the implications of school exclusions and the increasing number of homeless children and children in care. As a result, I hope that we can improve on the measures in the Bill to begin to tackle the root causes of this growing epidemic. Violent crime is a contagious disease that is infecting communities across our nation. Without concerted political will and sustained Government investment, we will continue to see many more unnecessary tragedies.

Serious Violence Strategy

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I want to begin by thanking the Minister for finally providing the time to debate this extremely important issue. It might interest the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) to know that I have been requesting this debate since 22 March, and I am grateful to everyone in the Chamber who also requested such a debate on 19 April. The Government’s strategy was published on 9 April and finally, on 22 May, we have a chance to debate it. Since I first called for this debate, we have lost 20 people to violent murders in London alone.

Before I begin, I want to urge the Minister to listen and genuinely take on board the comments that have been made by Members across the House today. This is not an issue that we can afford to play politics with. We know that the rise in youth violence has not just happened overnight, and we must realise that developing the right solutions will not happen overnight either. We will not fix violence with a few years’ worth of funding in a single parliamentary term. This will require cross-party working on a generational scale. We need a long-term strategy that Government after Government—I hope one of them will be a Labour Government—will continue to implement, no matter who is in power. We owe this to every person who has lost their life to violence, to every family that has lost a loved one and to every community still traumatised by violence.

Many Members will know that I am keen for us genuinely to address this issue, and that that has been driven by what I see locally. Since I was first elected, we have lost seven young lives: Shaquan Fearon, 17; Naseem Galleze, 17; Kabba Kamara, 23; Jamar Walker, 15; Myron Yarde, 17; Rukevwe Tadafe, 21; and Leoandro Osemeke, 16. In one school year, Lewisham Deptford has lost seven young people to violent deaths. Many teenagers in my constituency know someone who has been stabbed or murdered, and this breaks my heart. Those young people were part of our local community. They had families and friends, and those people are now grieving and hurting. Nobody quite understands why those lives were taken so needlessly and so senselessly. If this happened in a football stadium or in a workplace, we would rightly be crying out for a public inquiry.

In London we have had more than 60 murders since the start of this year, so we all know the Government need to act. We all need to act, and we need to do something different. We need to get in there and understand the root causes. What early interventions can we make to ensure that no young person carries a knife, and certainly never uses one? Prevention and early intervention are what it must be about. No young person is born carrying a knife. Something happens that leads them to feel they need to carry one, be it fears about their safety or a desire to fit in. Thankfully, we all now recognise that prevention and early intervention are better than cure.

I compliment the Government on this strategy, which rightly states that the only way truly to tackle violence is with early intervention and prevention. The strategy talks about using teachable moments to engage with young people, but I do not believe that teachable moment is when a kid turns up at A&E having been stabbed—that is not good enough. Why only then do they have a youth worker to work with them? I want us to be far more ambitious.

We need to start far, far earlier, working with families from birth by providing support such as Sure Start, which works with a child and their family from a pre-school age. Let us have that as the teachable moment, or does it not provide a good enough photo opportunity? The media and the Government, when talking about this issue, always seem to glamorise it: the media, with photos of gangsters or knives, make areas out to be the hood; and the Government with photo ops in A&E or with ex-gangsters.

Our young people are cool. They are cool because they are our future lawyers, bankers, nurses, doctors, social workers, footballers, music artists and, indeed, politicians. They can go on and achieve anything, and we have to ensure that we provide them with the opportunities so they can do anything.

To be brutal, the Government have provided an excellent analysis of the problem but, quite frankly, this is not a decent enough strategy. It is tinkering at the edges. At £40 million, the strategy just is not enough, especially when we consider that, at the same time, £387 million has been cut from our youth services.

The cross-party Youth Violence Commission, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna), the hon. Members for Braintree (James Cleverly) and for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), the right hon. Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) and for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and I have been working with our academic partner, Warwick University, has been studying the underlying causes of youth violence for nearly two years.

In February 2018 we conducted a national survey of more than 2,200 young people looking at their experiences of violence. More than 70% of young people tell us they are exposed to serious violence in real life at least once a month, and younger respondents aged eight to 19 experience the most serious violence. More than 16% of young people say they do not feel safe in their own home. Thirty-eight per cent. of young people know at least one person who sells drugs and, shockingly, almost 10% know more than 10 people who do. Forty per cent. of young people agree it is easy to buy illegal drugs where they live. And 33% of young people know at least one person who carries a weapon, and 7% know more than 10 people who do.

Put simply, this shows us that our young people are experiencing adverse childhood experiences far too often. We must do more to address that. I am pleased that the Government’s strategy references ACEs and the need to have a trauma-informed approach to policing, the youth justice system and looked-after children.

I am also pleased that police forces in Wales will be piloting a public health approach. We already know from the work of the violence reduction unit in Scotland that closer integration of services and communities can produce extremely positive results, but with just £7 million allocated to this public health approach, following £58.8 million of cuts to Welsh policing, surely the funding does not even fill the gap. We have seen 59% cuts to the Youth Justice Board, but those have been countered by a 23% increase in what we have to spend on our looked-after children. We therefore have to question whether we are paying for failure, because we have not invested in youth services, children’s services and schools.

We do know that we can get dramatic results by investing in and taking a public health approach to addressing serious violence; listening to communities, not dictating to them; and seeing the evidence of how such an approach works from Scotland, as the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) mentioned, from Chicago and elsewhere. With Birmingham, Reading and many London boroughs looking to replicate this, surely it is time we seek to do this on a wider scale, empower our communities to do this and look for a public health approach.

We have been listening to people and trying to find solutions that work. As part of the work of the commission, we held a series of evidence sessions where we listened to experts, practitioners and, most importantly, young people on a range of issues, including youth services, trauma and mental health, education and housing. I have visited numerous youth organisations and projects across the country. Our last session took place yesterday, and it covered policing and the criminal justice system. We had an interesting discussion on drugs. Some believed that if we legalised drugs, that would be enough to stop the drugs market. Others rightly identified the disparity between the treatment of, say, a young white kid caught with drugs at university and a young black kid caught with drugs on a street corner. The law is not implemented indiscriminately: black people are twice as likely as white people to be charged with possession of drugs, despite lower rates of drug use.

One thing we agreed on was the importance of educating people on the societal impact of recreational drug use. Many people today are conscious of where they get their clothes, coffee and meat from, but have a blind spot when it comes to the illegal drug market. Many of the people who are so careful to buy only Fairtrade coffee and wear ethically sourced clothes are the same people who do cocaine at the weekends, with no consideration of the wider impact of this habit. Perhaps if there were educational programmes on the real harm caused by the drug market, more people would treat cocaine with the same disdain they do to clothes made in sweatshops or eggs from caged hens.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent argument, which associates that middle class so-called “recreational drug use” with the normalisation of drugs and the supply lines that do so much damage. One person’s recreation is another person’s misery.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, and I think this is probably one area where we would have a cross-party consensus.

Some other clear themes emerged from the commission’s evidence sessions and the visits that I undertook. The Government’s serious violence strategy has much that aligns with our work, particularly a focus on early intervention, which is crucial. Many young people who are affected by serious crime, either as a victim or a perpetrator, have themselves been subjected to adverse childhood experiences. As a result, they grow up with unaddressed trauma and mental health issues, which can make them extremely vulnerable to negative influences, so support mechanisms are crucial. Young people need to have consistent and safe spaces where they can go for advice and support. Those could be counsellors in school, mentors or role models, community spaces, or grassroots charities and organisations. Right now, too many young people do not have access to any of those. We must do more to provide the training and funding for these types of activities. Prevention is always better than cure, and in this case prevention will undoubtedly save lives.

One thing we have definitely learnt from our work is that there are no quick fixes. The path to change will require long-term investment and an integrated approach, with public services, the police, communities and individuals all working closely together. The commission’s work has produced a lot of questions that we must address and that are beyond the current scope of the serious violence strategy, because the net has not yet been cast this wide. We must ask ourselves whether our school system is fit for purpose. Police officers in Lewisham have told me that the most dangerous time of day for stabbings among young people is after school and before parents come home from work. Should we therefore consider changing the hour that school finishes at to, say, 5 pm or 6 pm?

We must look at whether young children have enough positive male role models in their lives. Should we look into recruiting 50% male primary school teachers? Should we teach sex and relationship education at an earlier age? Perhaps we should teach primary school children what positive and negative relationships look like. Should our teachers be trained to teach in a trauma-informed way? Should we have dedicated police officers in all our schools, including primary schools, to build up trust with our young people so that they know police officers are safe people to speak to? Should we aim to have a policy of zero exclusions in schools?

Should we revisit the school syllabus, so that we can actually give young people the life skills for future employment—for example, by teaching them about budgeting, getting a mortgage or investing? Should we also teach social media classes that not only prepare young people for employment but ensure that they are safe online? Should we change our history syllabus to ensure it is much more culturally diverse and representative of our communities? Are we providing the right level of mental health support for young people in school?

There are also questions about youth service provision. How do we ensure that there is less needless competition between charities, and instead foster more collaboration? Time and again, grassroots charities see the usual suspects —the large charities that are able to afford bidding teams and that know how the system works—get funding for programmes. How do we provide long-term, sustainable funding for programmes that prove that they get results, run by smaller organisations right in the heart of our communities? As politicians, we have a responsibility to our young people and future generations to answer all those questions.

There is so much more that I could say and want to say, but I want to ensure that everybody gets to speak in the debate. Hopefully, Members can see that the youth violence commission’s work has been comprehensive and rigorous. Our initial findings will be published before the summer recess. I am grateful that the Prime Minister has agreed to meet me to discuss our work. As chair of the youth violence commission, I am aware of how many previous reports and strategies successive Governments have published that have been related to youth violence in one way or another. Many of the recommendations from those reports have never been implemented or, when they have been, progress has not been evaluated. I hope the Government’s serious violence strategy does not follow the same path, because young people continue to die on our streets. We owe it to them and to future generations to make sure that we fix this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

Yes, I can certainly give my hon. Friend that reassurance. We know the importance of working closely with our European Union friends on matters of security. In conversations with my opposite numbers, I have received much reassurance from them that that is what they want as well.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, you will remember that on 29 March, the Leader of the House said that we would have a debate in Parliament on the Government’s serious violence strategy when it was published. It was published on 9 April, so my question is simple: when will we have that debate?

[Amber Rudd]

I will take that very good question to the Leader of the House. I would relish such a debate. I thank the hon. Lady for the leadership she has given in this area, and I hope to have more progress to report regarding the taskforce in due course.

Police Funding

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my right hon. Friend and other Essex MPs for making representations on behalf of Essex, as other MPs across the House have done for their areas. The point that the shadow Minister deliberately missed is that PCCs asked for that additional flexibility, and she also ignored the fact that they received overwhelming approval when they went to the public and asked the question. It is hypocritical to accuse us of unfair taxation and of using council tax to fund local policing, as Labour is the party that doubled council tax when it was in power. I am not taking any lessons on preventive taxation from the Labour party.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Seventeen young people have been murdered in London since the start of this year, and there is a lack of community policing. We need local links with policing, and police officers should visit schools. What does the Minister have to say about that?

[Mr Hurd]

I completely share the hon. Lady’s concern and dismay about the rise of serious violent crime not just on the streets of London but elsewhere. I will come back to that.

As a London MP, I would point out that we have broadly the same number of police officers as we did in 2008-09, when we last saw a spike in knife crime. This is not just about policing or police numbers; it is about the political will to work together to bear down on the problem. We should look back at the success of the previous Mayor of London and his deputy, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), in applying pressure on the problem to move from 28 or 29 deaths a year down to eight. That is eight too many, but there was real movement, which had nothing to do with the number of police officers—the number stayed the same. It was about strategy and political will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

Let me just finish this sentence. The Government are not remotely complacent about that or out of touch with what is happening on the ground. We are well aware that the terrorist risk has evolved and escalated. Since the serious and organised crime strategy was published in 2013, the serious and organised crime threat, which is often not visible to our constituents, has evolved rapidly. We have made significant progress, but we believe there is more we can do to generate a truly comprehensive response, which is why we will publish a new serious and organised crime strategy later this year. As has been mentioned, we are seeing a genuine increase in so-called “low volume, high impact” serious violent crime—there is no getting away from that—which is devastating in its impact. Everyone in the House will share a concern to get on top of that, and we fully intend to do so with the forthcoming launch of the serious violence strategy.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Does the Minister know when the serious violence strategy will actually be published?

[Mr Hurd]

It is imminent—and that does mean imminent.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley is right; there is absolutely no doubt that our police are busier than ever. We saw a spike in emergency calls last summer, which has tailed off a bit but did cause problems. Recorded crime has increased significantly. Recorded crime is obviously not the same as people’s experience of crime and it is not what the national crime survey is tracking; obviously, it tracks what the police record. So what is happening there? Again, it is important to be clear about that and to get independent assessment from our statisticians. These are independent statisticians, not me, making it clear that most of this growth is down to two factors. The first is that the police are getting better at recording crime. She registered that, and she will know that they have been criticised for poor performance on that in the past.

Secondly and crucially, and I hope the House will welcome this, we are getting more victims of hidden crime coming forward with allegations that need investigating. This matters enormously, because for far too long victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, rape and modern slavery have not stepped forward, in part because they did not trust the system. The Prime Minister, the former Home Secretary, deserves great credit for this, because she challenged the police to be better at safeguarding the vulnerable and going after hidden crime. When I go to Manchester and I speak to the lady who runs the modern slavery unit there, she shows me a graph detailing an alarming increase in the incidents it is investigating, but she is the first to point out, “Minister, this is not new crime. This has been going on for a very long time. We are just getting better at finding it and investigating.” That is the undercurrent of the shift in recorded crime and if that reflects better police practice and more public confidence in our police system, as we are told, surely that is welcome.

However, it is undeniable that the shift in demand and these investigations are taking the police into more complex and time-consuming work, and that does mean that our police are stretched, as evidenced by the recent Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services PEEL report on effectiveness, which clearly indicated that a minority of forces are struggling to manage demand.

Police Grant Report

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I need to correct that, because it is fake news. The money for counter-terrorism is ring-fenced—this is new money. I note the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I also note that, as I understand it, he will be voting against this money today.

I was talking about the serious changes in the nature of demand on police as a result of the increase in recorded crime. I was at pains to point out that some of the drivers of this growth in recorded crime are welcome, as they reflect improvements in the police recording of crime, following substantial criticisms from the inspectorate back in 2014. They also reflect the fact that more victims of high-harm hidden crimes are coming forward, which I am sure the whole House welcomes. We are also clear, however, that there is genuine growth in low-volume, high-impact violent crime, which concerns us all. That will be the focus of the Government’s upcoming serious violence strategy.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

When will the Government publish that strategy?

[Mr Hurd]

We said that we would publish it in the spring. It comes on top of regulations to ban the sale of zombie knives, and a consultation on a range of new offences around the sale and possession of dangerous weapons.

In addition to the changes in demand I have outlined, there is the escalation and evolution of the terrorist risk. In the context of police resources, the point is that demand on the police has risen, which has put more pressure on our police—there is no doubt about that.

The second message we got from many PCCs and chiefs across England and Wales was a request for greater flexibility regarding the precept. PCCs are, of course, elected by their local populations, and many want a greater ability to determine how much local funding they can raise to deliver for their communities. The third message was a request for greater certainty over future funding so that PCCs are able to plan more effectively and free up reserves for investment. I am pleased to confirm that the Government have proposed a funding settlement that responds positively to all three messages.