Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey) (LD): As the hon. Lady knows, I support her hugely in what we are trying to do in the all-party group. May I add one more thing to her list? It is about victim support. My experience is that if people know that when they give evidence or a statement to the police it is bound to mean that they have to go to court, they will not come forward; whereas if they know that they can talk to the police but that a separate process requires their consent for the use of that evidence, we will receive much more evidence. People are willing to share information, but not if the result is their having to stand publicly in the witness box six months later.
Ms Abbott: That is a reasonable point. It is all too easy to bandy statistics on the subject, but I am looking at practical steps forward for people who face the reality of gun crime day in, day out. That would help my constituents, who want to go to court and see criminals behind bars but are terrified and, for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, do not feel that the police can or will afford them protection, especially once the criminal has actually been sent to prison.
The police cannot fight gun crime on their own. It is in the nature of inner-city gun crime that the community often knows who is behind it. It is vital to have links with the community and to work with it. The Metropolitan police have shown the way with Operation Trident, although there is always more that could be done, but they were ahead of many police forces in realising that they had to enlist the support of the community.
The House may not welcome what I am about to say, but I have to point out that there is a history between many inner-London communities and the Metropolitan police. For centuries, the history in Hackney has been that Hackney people do not grassrightly or wrongly. When, in addition, we consider some of the incidents of brutality and corruption that have characterised some inner-city police stations, we have to acknowledge that history. I say to the community that we must put the suspicions and issues of the past behind us, and work with the police to put criminals behind bars. However, I say to the House and the police that there is a history and we must work to bring the community and the police together.
I now turn to the long term. As I said, gun crime has been a problem in Hackney for more than a decade. Years before the House was talking about it, years
18 Oct 2004 : Column 719
before the papers were talking about it, people were coming to me saying, "We see people on the bus with these guns. What is going on?" What really brought the situation home to me was when, four or five years ago, officers from Operation Trident showed me slides that they had taken of people who had died as a result of gun crimethe actual criminals, the young men carrying the guns. I saw pictures of young black men, not much older than my son, lying face-down in pools of blood and I asked myself, "What has our community come to that young people hold their lives and their communities so cheap that they will throw away their lives?" And for what? For nothing.
Gun crime is a particular tragedy for the communities in which it occurs. I have spoken of the fear that criminals often engender and of how people are frightened to come forward, but it is a tragedy for communities that there is a generation of young men, even if it is only a minority, who are so socially alienated that carrying a gun and being the muscle for a hard-drug operation is the height of their aspiration.
Obviously, criminals commit crime, but criminals are created from a pool of social alienation, and part of that alienation is the frightening, continuing educational underachievement of black boys in our schools system. I have said this before, but I will say it again: we cannot allow a situation where, year after year, other ethnic groups catch up with white childrenin some cases, overtaking themand black boys continue to fall further behind. Unless we address the underlying causes of that social alienation, a proportion of young people, a fraction, will always fall through the school system, fall into social alienation and become prey to the gun culture.
I would advise against exaggerating gun crime in this countryit is nothing like what is seen in the United Statesbut I have no doubt, as a mother, a resident and a Member of Parliament in somewhere that has been a hot spot for gun crime for more than 10 years, that it creates fear in the hearts of residents, even if the figures about what is likely to happen and whether they are likely to see it are relatively low.
Thanks to the work of Operation Trident, gun crime has begun to recede. Trident has been successful, but there is more to be done. We cannot afford to let 18-month-old children become the victims of gun crime. We cannot afford to lose even one life to gun crime, so I urge Ministers to consider taking practical steps about replica weapons, to consider witness protection issues and to help those in Operation Trident work closely with other police forces to roll out its lessons about the importance of listening to the community. Above all, I urge Ministers to look at why some young men in some of our big cities seem to feel that life has nothing more to offer them than demonstrating their masculinity and status by holding on to guns.
It is tragic that, every 18 months, hon. Members get up in the House to say, "We have reached a watershed on this issue." We heard that about the Birmingham shootings; we have heard it today. This is not just about the rare case of a young girl that excites public opinion; some of us will not be satisfied until the relentless, week-on-week toll that gun crime causes in our communities is ended.
18 Oct 2004 : Column 720
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater) (Con): Time is running short, so I wish to consider a specific point about crime in the south-west. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who is in his place, and I face a particular problem in that Avon and Somerset police force is involved in a difficult balancing act because it covers the conurbation of Bristol and a vast rural area to the south. I pay tribute to its chief constable, Steve Pilkington. The last time that the Home Secretary set targets to reduce burglary in urban areas, it decreased by 8 per cent. in the urban area, but it increased by 8 per cent. in Somerset. The reason is that the resources had to be put into Bristol to fight crime there. In the latest round, more than two thirds of the officers who have been created have gone to Bristol, with few coming to the rural areas. That has exacerbated the problem of rural crime.
We also have a problem with the M5 making it easy for criminals and others to move quickly around the west country. Rural crime is becoming more and more of a problem, which, as far as I can see, the Government have not addressed in any way or form. In the past week, three support officers have been created for the whole of the west of Somerset. That is it; no new policemen have been created. We had some parish wardens, but the problem was that the Government removed the funding and told the district councils that they could take them on. The districts councils could not afford to do so. We made representations, but we got absolutely no joy.
The problem is that it is getting harder to do the jobs that we need to do. We have heard a lot about gun crime in Hackney. Luckily, we have had only one gun crime on Exmoor, but when the police support units that were coming down from Bristol and up from Exeter got there, they realised that their radios do not work on Exmoora fundamental problem when dealing with an incident with a gun. The incident was contained and dealt with, but the police could not operate normally when they got up on to the moor. The person was eventually brought down and the situation was resolved. If we are going to create extra police, their numbers must be distributed fairly. It is easy to say that we have created 1,000 or 10,000 more police, but if they are not distributed to do the job, we will be failing people.
We face another problem that has not been covered in the debate. We have lost our probation officers: one end of my constituency has none now and the other has one for half a day a week. As we well know, the probation service in Bristol has just asked whether the courts in Somerset could just take a quota of court reports. The quota suggested is under half of what is required per month. The courts cannot physically do their job, because there are not enough probation officers. The justices of the peace are under more and more pressure to sort out serious crime and crime generally, but they cannot obtain the reports that they need. The Government have not addressed the problem, even though Members from Somerset have pushed it time and again. In fact, the problem has got worse over the past few months, because the justices of the peace cannot do their job.
I pay tribute to one measure that has been a great successthe antisocial behaviour order. In rural areas where one family causes the trouble, we know exactly who they are and what they are doing. In one of the large
18 Oct 2004 : Column 721
villages in my constituency, we faced a terrible problem with a family who, interestingly enough, had been moved from an urban conurbation. The police applied for an order, got it and resolved the problem. However, in the meantime, urban area problems that we are not used to were placed upon us and the police could not deal with them because they had no experience of them. However, the Bristol police came to the area and resolved the problem.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) wishes to speak, so I shall conclude my remarks. I ask the Government to distribute police numbers fairly. We cannot fight rural crime in the same way as we fight urban crime. Chief constables, such as Steve Pilkington who was criticised by the Home Secretary for no fault of his own, are just not able to deal with it.
Next Section | Index | Home Page |