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12.43 pm
Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North): I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) on her Bill and on the campaign that preceded it. In each case she has done the community that she represents in Sutton and Cheam, and our nation, a great service. I hope that she will not think it a discourtesy on my part if I leave to see constituents shortly after speaking.
As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, Philip Lawrence was my constituent and friend, so I have been extremely close to one of the main triggers of the Bill. I would like to say a word or two about that situation, without prejudice to the forthcoming trial of those charged with his murder.
The position would have been different, and Philip might have been with us today, if the Bill had been in place on 8 December 1995. Philip Lawrence saw a group of thugs outside his school, St. George's, behaving in a menacing way. If such a thing happens now, a headmaster will be able to call the police, who would have power to search those involved, on the suspicion that one of them was carrying a knife, and they would be able to disarm that individual. If that had been the case in December, a brave headmaster would not have had to face a group of thugs who were interfering with one of his pupils--a vulnerable 13-year-old--and then, when his intervention failed to deal with the problem, had to chase them up the road for 200 or 300 yd. Think of the courage of that. At that distance from his school, Philip Lawrence still could not resolve the situation, and he was stabbed in the heart. Somehow he got back to his school, collapsed outside it, was carried in by his colleagues and the children, and died 20 minutes later.
That has been such a tragedy for Philip's family--his dear wife Frances, his brave mother, who is nearly 90, and his four children. It has also been a tragedy for my community and for the nation. I believe that that sort of thing will be prevented in future by the Bill. For that reason alone, the Bill is right and proper.
What more can we say about the Bill's effect on schools? It is profound. For the first time, the police will have the power to enter schools and search for a weapon. My 23 years in teaching included my time as deputy headmaster at a school for 1,100 boys at King's Cross--fine boys, but it was not the easiest of areas. I was subsequently deputy headmaster of a school for 2,200 children from 11 to 19 on the Bellingham estate in
Lewisham, and I ran that school for periods of time. So I know that in running a school one often has to face physical challenges. As you know from your own professional days, Madam Deputy Speaker, in schools there are children who will go to Oxford or Cambridge, and there are those who may become criminals if we do not succeed in doing what every school seeks to do and handling them in the best possible way. From time to time I have had to disarm boys with knives and other aggressive weapons--boulders, great pieces of wood, and so on--just as other teachers, head teachers and deputy heads have had to do over the years.
Once the Bill is enacted teachers will not have to do that any more. If there is a suspicion that a pupil has a lethal weapon such as a knife, and if the head and deputy head feel that they cannot handle that difficult situation, they will be able to call in the police to deal with it. That is a sad development, because in one's professional days one liked to feel that one was king of one's classroom and of one's school--as, indeed, one was, and as head teachers, deputies and teachers still are, but they now need the assistance of the facility that the Bill provides to help them handle the serious and growing difficulties which, as we know, have led to the murder of a great headmaster.
Mr. David Nicholson:
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) on her work in promoting the Bill and on responding to the horrific statistics and cases that she cited in her speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) described in detail the tragic murder of his constituent, and we shall all remember that case for a long time.
I wish to take the House back some 20 years when, perhaps rather rashly, I intervened in an incident in the west end of London. A person was lying on the ground being kicked by a group of four or five thugs and, in coming to his assistance, I was thrown to the ground and sustained a kick under the ribs. The police arrived rapidly, so I and the victim of the assault did not suffer worse damage. I fear that such incidents have become more common in recent years, and I wonder what would have happened to us if the assailants had been armed with knives.
Shortly before that episode, I had moved into a new flat and one evening I disturbed a burglar--a new residence is often burgled at the time of handover. The burglar did not steal anything from my flat, but when I discussed the incident with the owner of the flat downstairs he told me that the burglar had stolen some money from him. I said, "I'm very sorry--I wish that I had tried to apprehend him, but it all happened so suddenly." My neighbour replied, "It's a good thing you didn't do that because he also stole the bread knife." That brings home to us the danger faced by the police--to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam referred--and others going about their business who try to prevent street crime if they tangle with someone who is carrying a knife.
I hope that the Bill will proceed successfully through Parliament. My hon. Friend referred to the powers that the legislation will afford the police to arrest a person for carrying a knife without good reason. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North referred to the powers to search schools on the suspicion that students are carrying knives. We were appalled by the comments of the director of education in the borough of Sutton. I hope that there will be no resistance to the new extremely important powers that the Bill confers on the police to enter schools. They are a way of commemorating Philip Lawrence.
It may be quite easy for students in school who are carrying knives to arouse suspicion. Other students get to know about it, and therefore the staff will become aware that knives are present at the school and that they should call in the police. However, I am concerned about those armed with knives who seek to commit burglaries or street crimes or who simply meet up at the pub and are involved in an affray.
We have heard about the traditions of the Scots and the Sikhs, but people in this country do not carry knives like the characters in Romeo and Juliet--stuck through their belts so that everyone can see them. Most people conceal such weapons. I tried to address earlier--it appears that I was not successful--the problem of how one arouses suspicion and how the police will deal with this matter. Perhaps the police should have more flexible powers to stop and search people so that those who carry knives will run the risk of detection and prosecution.
Sir Michael Shersby:
I join colleagues in all parts of the House in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam on her achievement in bringing her Bill to its Third Reading and taking a signal step in the progress that Parliament is making towards dealing with the difficult problem of the knife culture. The Bill is important to my constituents as to those of every other Member of Parliament, and I am sure that it will be welcomed by many head teachers and others responsible for the safety of children in school.
My one regret is that the Bill does not deal with a major obstacle in detecting whether a person is in possession of an offensive weapon--the inability of a police constable to stop and search a person unless the officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that he will find a stolen or prohibited weapon. The introduction of the concept of reasonable grounds is the responsibility of the House, following the Brixton riots in the early 1980s and with the subsequent passage of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1994. That concept was backed by a code of practice for the exercise by police officers of statutory powers of stop and search, which set out the circumstances in which an officer can stop and search a person with reasonable grounds for suspicion.
The manuals used to educate and train probationer constables advise that the level of suspicion required to establish reasonable grounds in exercising the power to
stop and search is no less than the level required before an officer arrests a person without warrant for an offence that carries such a power of arrest. The existing legislation and its associated guidance are too restrictive in providing police officers with the flexibility to use their powers of stop and search as a preventive measure, which I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam is of utmost importance.
It is important that the House should recognise that police officers cannot use their substantial experience, knowledge, intuition and training in dealing with potential problems in a proactive way. We all admire the intuition, training, hunches and skill that police officers bring to their work in protecting the citizen, but they are restricted by the provision that I mentioned.
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