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Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): The premise of my speech was to illustrate that if antisocial behaviour and low-level crime go unchecked, they escalate into more serious crime and, at the other end of the spectrum, to the gun crime that has been the subject of this debate.
I was in the main police station in my constituency recently for the celebration of the 175th anniversary of the Metropolitan police. It was a rather happy occasion, with a splendid cake—it was a shame to cut it. While I was there, I made a shocking discovery. A row of posters on the wall showed the successes of Havering police in exceeding the targets set by the Metropolitan police for clearing up crime in certain categories. Havering was first out of 32 London boroughs in the detection rate for total notifiable offences, second for vehicle crime, fourth for robbery and 12th for residential robbery. I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating Havering police on their excellent achievement in scoring way above its targets. What shocked me was that the Metropolitan police clear-up rate for total notifiable offences is 20 per cent. It gets worse. For residential burglary, the figure is 17 per cent., for robbery 16 per cent. and—wait for it because this is the real shocker—for vehicle crime it is 5 per cent. If the figure were any lower, stealing, damaging or breaking into a car would be a non-crime. This is corporate trivialisation of crimes that are the breeding ground for yet more serious crime. Such crimes need to be treated seriously so that young criminals do not become bolder and turn into serious criminals.
I telephoned my main police station last night and asked why it had taken so long for Havering to issue its first antisocial behaviour order. I asked what police resources and time have to be invested into achieving an ASBO. An officer replied and referred to the youngster involved. He said:
"I identified him as a burgeoning community problem in July 2003 when he was subject of an ABC"—
an acceptable behaviour contract—
"which he breached twice . . . In 2004, he seemed to take off and from April-August committed ten substantive offences of shoplifting/criminal damage/assault and public order, which were not proceeded with essentially because witnesses and victims were unwilling to attend Court through in the main fear of reprisals. There were three other offences which did go to Court—robbery,
- assault and burglary—for the last, after two supervision orders had failed miserably, he was sentenced to 4 months in prison at a YOI."
The officer initiated proceedings for an ASBO in June 2004 and finally achieved his objective when it was granted on 22 September. He says:
"I would not even try to assess the number of hours I have been involved upon this project, but needless to say it was considerable, revisiting victims, reinvestigating allegations, attempting to persuade victims to put their fears to one side and attend Court (unsuccessful), attending multi-agency case conferences, taking third party statements so that I could present the case, jumping over a succession of new hurdles erected by the Defence and sanctioned by the Court. This is on the face of it a user friendly piece of legislation, but in reality, which is exacerbated by the misunderstanding and misinterpretation by the Courts, but mainly the Clerks of the Courts, it has become so unwieldy that Officers tend to shy away from the prospect."
The measure would be an excellent tool if it were more user-friendly. Although the concept behind ASBOs is good, their methodology needs serious revision. The police need the freedom to use the targets that they feel are most appropriate to their local circumstances.
9.41 pm
Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con): We have had a serious debate and I should say at the outset that, although I shall make a few disobliging comments about Government policy, Her Majesty's Opposition have attempted today to consider these serious problems and help the Government to face up to them.
My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary said that the debate would focus largely on Nottingham, as indeed it has. Conservative Members think that Nottingham gives us a powerful warning, not that Britain is consumed by gun crime, but of what could go wrong throughout our society if action is not taken now. My right hon. Friend has visited Nottingham on several occasions and I went there on Saturday. I am pleased to hear that Home Office Ministers will go there shortly to find out what can be done to help. The Home Secretary said that he understood the problem. Although we take him at his word, we expect him to take the necessary action.
The motion is specific and addresses, above all, gun crime, which has risen steeply in Nottingham. We could have widened the debate in many different ways. For example, we could have dwelt on last week's Metropolitan police figures for London that showed that knife crime had increased by 13 per cent. over the past year and that half the offenders were under the age of 21. We could have considered the figures from Birmingham and Manchester—they will come out shortly, but they have been trailed—that will show a sharp rise in alcohol-fuelled street violence in Britain's towns and cities. We could have considered the general rise in crime and the fall in detection rates, but we wanted to face up today to the dangerous escalation of gun crime.
Gun crime in this country has risen by 35 per cent. over the past year. In the past 100 days—since the House rose for the summer recess—25 people in Britain have been shot, the youngest of whom was a child in Hackney aged one and a half, and 18 people have died, the latest being 14-year-old Danielle Beccan. In Nottingham alone, there have been 11 fatal shootings over 27 months
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and there are 17 ongoing murder inquiries. As the House heard earlier, the usually quiet suburb of Arnold, which I had the pleasure of representing for 10 years, was recently the scene of the murder in broad daylight of Marian Bates, a local jeweller.
We are all sorry that the Home Secretary is not in the Chamber. He chided my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) for citing a figure of 1 million drug users and suggested that that was not true. I can only say that he should read page 64 of his own 2002–03 crime survey for England and Wales on which he will find the direct quote that my right hon. Friend used.
The Home Secretary talked about bombing Afghanistan, but my right hon. Friend said nothing about bombing Afghanistan. Instead, he outlined to the House the problem of increasing amounts of heroin from that country appearing on our streets and asked the Government to set out their policy to deal with that.
The Home Secretary then chided my right hon. Friend for what he had said about the 5,000 extra police for eight years, the 20,000 prison places and the 20,000 drug rehabilitation places that are part and parcel of the Conservative party's forthcoming manifesto for the general election. I have just moved from our economic team, and I can tell the House that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right: those are costed policies approved by the shadow Chancellor, and they will be introduced when we return to government.
The right hon. Gentleman then had the nerve to tell the House that the police were burdened with bureaucracy and form-filling because of the Conservative party's parliamentary questions—a statement that was met with astonishment across the House. He then defended the British crime survey—but all Governments use the British crime survey, and all Oppositions look at recorded crime figures. I would also say to the Home Secretary, were he here, that the British crime survey excludes sex offences, illegal drug use, retail crime—of which there were 8.5 million incidents in the past year—gun crime, and crimes against people under 16, which constitute one of the fastest growing categories of crime.
The Home Secretary's response left us with an impression of his stunning complacency. He did not seem to care much about the six questions asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, which are extremely important, and to which I shall return later.
The House then heard a speech by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), who defended the seriousness of the shadow Home Secretary's speech and said that he would support us in the Lobby. He also raised points about the locally elected police boards and the use of legitimate firearms, to which I am sure we shall return in due course.
The House also heard a moving speech by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson), who said that the city of Nottingham was populated by people who are kind, decent and honourable. Having represented some of those people in the suburbs of the city, I entirely agree with him. He also talked about the cynical and cruel theft of childhood, and the need to
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separate children from drugs and guns. I agree with much of what he said about that too. He said that we must do more to protect our borders from guns and drugs, and made a good point about the lack of necessity for cars to have blacked-out windows, which I hope those on the Government Front Bench will consider carefully. He spoke of his hope that the murder of that little girl nine days ago would be a watershed for Nottingham, and the whole House will agree strongly with him about that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) expressed his concern about villains coming into this country from eastern Europe, and launched a trenchant attack on Government drugs policy. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) endeared herself to the Government Whips Office by the way in which she spoke about law and order issues in her constituency, whereas my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) spoke about violent crime rising in Plymouth, the murder of Flo Seccombe and the crisis in mental health services in Plymouth and the rest of Devon. He also asked the Minister a number of questions.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe) brought us back to the west midlands, and three times questioned the Conservative party's pledge about the 40,000 extra police. He did so because he knows that that pledge is going down extremely well in his constituency and the rest of Birmingham. The Conservative party's costed promise of 2,414 policemen and women will go down well in the west midlands.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) spent Saturday night on patrol in his constituency, and shared some of his experiences with the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) offered wise words about some of the wider issues on the national stage, as well as issues particular to Nottinghamshire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin)—[Interruption.] I apologise if I mispronounced my hon. Friend's constituency. He inveighed against the Home Office's public relations budget, and said that prison works. How right he is.
The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) spoke about the dreadful events in her constituency, reminded the House of the dreadful events that happened in Birmingham at new year 2003, and gave some insights into the horror of young men carrying guns as fashion accessories—a point that was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South.
I visited Nottingham on Saturday and met two representatives of Mothers Against Guns: Janice Collins, whose son Brendan was shot near where Danielle Beccan was murdered, and Christine Bradshaw, whose son Marvyn was murdered at the age of 22; his murderer was convicted in July. Those two dignified and decent women, whose every waking hour has been ruined by the pointless and vile murder of their children, speak for many when they say what needs to be done. I hope that when the Home Office team go to Nottingham, they will have a chance to listen to what that organisation says.
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Mothers Against Guns makes it clear that there are not enough police. Nottinghamshire's chief of police has asked for an extra 1,000 police; under Conservative proposals, he will receive an extra 714 as swiftly as possible. Everyone knows that there are not enough police on our streets and it is extremely important that we get more. The organisation says, rightly, that the five-year minimum sentence for possessing an illegal firearm is not enough. Guns have replaced the baseball bats that gangs carried five to 10 years ago. We need to send the strongest possible message that those who carry, keep, sell, maintain or import firearms illegally will be imprisoned for a very long time. Mothers Against Guns also speaks of the importance of better witness protection, which has been mentioned today, as well as the availability of firearms and the danger of our porous borders, which has been mentioned often in this debate.
The Government amendment to our motion invites the House to welcome
"the record falls in crime achieved by this Government since 1997, recognising that the chances of becoming a victim of crime are now at their lowest level since records began".
What a brass neck and nerve the Government have. Recorded crime has increased in almost every category since 1998. The overall number of offences has increased by 16 per cent., from 5.1 million to 5.9 million. Violence against the person has increased by 90 per cent., sexual offences by 44 per cent, robbery by 51 per cent., total violent crime by 83 per cent. and criminal damage by 37 per cent. Over the same seven-year period, detection rates have fallen. Detection rates for violence against the person have fallen from 79 per cent. in 1997 to 50 per cent.; for sex crime from 77 per cent. to 39 per cent.; for robbery from 27 per cent. to 18 per cent.; for burglary from 23 per cent. to 13 per cent.; and for violent crime from 69 per cent. to 47 per cent. Those figures are not manufactured in Conservative central office. They are the Home Office figures produced in July this year.
We have not heard an answer to any of the six questions posed by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary. We did not hear what the Home Secretary will do about the physical security of our borders or the burgeoning supply of heroin from Afghanistan. Will he introduce an amnesty? We heard nothing. Will he take measures to stop postal and internet supply of guns? Again, no answer. Will he provide the extra police—not community support officers—that Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester are crying out for? The answer to those questions is apparently that he does not have an answer.
I have been reading some of the speeches made by the Prime Minister when he occupied the position currently graced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden. The right hon. Gentleman now blames the '60s for disorder in Britain, but when he was shadow Home Secretary he inveighed against the then Tory Government who, he said,
"will not take any blame or responsibility but puts it on the 1960s or the trendy liberal establishment—anywhere but on the Government, who have been in power and have had a chance to do something about it. That is what people dislike about the Government. What people dislike about the Government more than anything else is that . . . they do not have the guts to take any responsibility . . . for the situation that they created."—[Official Report, 11 January 1994; Vol. 235, c. 38.]
That is what they have done. Labour has been in power for seven and a half years—seven and a half years of rising crime. For seven and a half years, Labour has had the chance in government to put those things right. Instead, we have had seven and a half years of Labour failure. That is the real record for which the Labour Government now stand condemned.
9.44 pm
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