| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Speaker: Who will prepare and bring in the Bill?
Mr. Banks: There are not very many takers for this, Mr. Speaker; it appears to be just me.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tony Banks.
National Community Service
Mr. Tony Banks accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for a national scheme of community service for 16 and 17-year-olds: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed [Bill 96].
Opposition Day[5th Allotted Day]
Community Services
Mr. Speaker: We now come to the main business. I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
12.37 pm
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden): I beg to move,
- That this House expresses its deep concern at the collapse of community services in Britain and the adverse effect on social inclusion, neighbourhood renewal, regional prosperity, and the quality of community life; condemns the policies of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which have resulted in the unfair distribution of local authority grant, causing divisive regional disparities, and centralised decision-making and services; regrets that the only solution the Government has to these problems is an expensive unnecessary additional layer of regional government; further condemns the Government's failure to improve local health care provision by tackling the necessary reform of NHS services; deplores the absence of policies to protect rural communities from the effects of the deep recession in farming; and recognises the Government's total failure to protect community services, resulting in a crisis in school funding, an increase in violent crime, a deteriorating transport system, and a threat to important local services including community pharmacies, sub-post offices and residential care homes.
We have called this debate today in response to a real and growing threat across this country: the breakdown of our local communities. One reason why I regret the absence of the Deputy Prime Minister is that this debate, on the destruction of community life in this country, is not confined to local government. The failure and breakdown of our local communities is being accelerated by the attitude, strategy and tactics of the whole Government: a Government who are convinced that they know how to run people's lives better than they themselves do; a Government who think that communities should fit the model that they prescribe; a Government of red tape, initiatives and bureaucracy, of deceits, gimmicks and hype. Above all, they are a Government who do not trust people, and who do not trust communities to go their own way and live their own lives.
This is, in short, a story about the way central Government deal with local councils and local institutions. The Government tell them what to do, and then blame them when things go wrong. They dictate how they can spend their money, and then blame them for raising taxes. The result is all too familiar; indeed, it is the story of this Government. People pay more and more. That has led to a breakdown of trust between local people and local politicians, but the blame often lies not at the local level, but here in Westminster; more often than not in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
A community should be a place where people feel at home, safe and secure; a place where they feel in control of their own lives and have a sense of belonging. A
community can be any size and it does not matter whether it has a rural or urban character. However, in our inner cities, the suburbs and the countryside today, any sense of belonging has been replaced by a sense of helplessness and frustration, alienation and anger. Much of that is a direct result of the Government's policies.Let us examine one of the biggest problems facing communities throughout the country: crime. Communities break down when local people lose control of their streets, when the elderly and vulnerable are unable to walk outside at night for fear of being attacked, when vandalism and graffiti go unchallenged and destroy local environments, and when the fear of crime has a crippling effect on people's lives. The Government are losing the war on crime.
Jim Knight (South Dorset): Given that crime is decreasing, when the right hon. Gentleman talks about the crippling effect of the fear of crime, is he not guilty of stoking up the fear of crime and creating the crippling effect?
David Davis: Let us start with the fiction favoured by the Government—that crime is going down. The crime figures about which the hon. Gentleman talks are based on the crime survey, which, as he should know, does not include much drugs crime or crime against youths; the so-called victimless crimes. All those crimes are omitted. As a result, the figures underestimate the level of crime. If the hon. Gentleman wants a test of the real index of crime, he should go and talk to people in his constituency and find out whether they believe that crime is going down.
Last year, 97 per cent. of communities in England and Wales saw an increase in some forms of crime. Violent crime is up by 28 per cent. Worse still, gun crime has risen by 80 per cent. since 1997; it is worse in the inner cities, but not only there. New figures reveal that many people in communities throughout Britain today are more likely to be mugged than residents of the Bronx in New York. Unbelievably, that is true in Lambeth, Hackney, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Reading, Salford, Leeds, Middlesbrough and many other areas. However, far from getting a grip on the problem, the Government are leaving many communities to suffer alone.
The Government promised that local communities would be able to deal with disruptive young people by imposing new all-encompassing antisocial behaviour orders. As only the present Government can, they then made those orders so complicated and bureaucratic that few have been imposed at all. We were promised 20,000 antisocial behaviour orders by now, but we have not had even 1,000. Yet that is a success in comparison with child curfew orders, of which we have seen none at all; not one.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): Is my right hon. Friend aware that, as the Rowntree Charitable Trust pointed out, people are in so much despair about the detection of crime that they no longer bother to report it? That is one of the reasons why crime appears to be going down.
David Davis: My hon. Friend is right. Another reason is that fewer police officers are on the streets today to
fight crime. Across the country, local police stations are closing to the public. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) should know, here in London a decision has been taken to close Hampstead police station outside office hours. Clearly, criminals in Hampstead only ply their trade from nine to five.The Government are also doing away with local justice; 96 local magistrates courts have closed since 1997 and more closures are in the pipeline. Justice moves further and further from local people. Remote justice is poor justice, but that is the justice that more and more people are being given. As a result, more serious crimes are not only committed, but go unpunished. The proportion of crimes solved has fallen every year since 1998. Across the country, communities are suffering because decent, hard-working people are being oppressed by a lawless minority. That is the result of failure not by our police, but by politicians.
Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood): Before the right hon. Gentleman moves away from policing, I draw his attention to the example of Blackpool, where the Tower project is in operation. Police forces from all over the country are coming to have a look at what is happening there. The police are working with the health service, doctors and voluntary organisations to address the needs of drug abusers. That has achieved a substantial reduction in crime. Blackpool is an example of a town where the community does exist and where people work together. The multiplicity of agencies working together has led to a huge reduction in crime.
David Davis: That was an interesting mini-speech; almost an advert for the hon. Lady's local council. Sadly, of course, Blackpool has many other problems, but I want to return to the questions of crime and of police on the streets, which the hon. Lady did not mention. Until we have more police officers on the streets fighting crime—with the burden of form filling removed from their shoulders—and until we have true neighbourhood policing in this country, we will never be able to reclaim our communities for the honest citizen. That is what we are committed to; an extra 40,000 police officers on our streets. That is a real and necessary commitment that we will meet and which this Government will not.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore): Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in welcoming the increase of more than 300 officers in the South Wales force since 1997, and the fact that six officers in Maesteg are funded under the Communities First scheme? Will he also welcome the opening of the Maesteg police station, and of a substation in Ogmore Vale? All that has happened in the past few years. Will he join me in congratulating the South Wales force?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |