Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
522-534)
CHRIS HUHNE
MP
24 MARCH 2009
Q522 Chairman: Mr Huhne, thank you very
much for coming to give evidence to us today. You were present
for part of this session. This is the final session of our knife
crime inquiry. The committee is looking to produce a consensus
report that can be taken off the shelf by each one of the political
parties as an example of what we can do in order to deal with
the very serious issue of knife crime. This is your first evidence
session before the select committee in your new role. I should
put to you the same question I put to Mr Grayling. Imagine it
is 1 June 2010 and you are the Home Secretary. On the issue of
knife crime, what would be the first measures that you would take
in order to deal with the issue of knife crime?
Chris Huhne: Thank you, Chairman,
and may I say I am very grateful to be invited and delighted that
you are attempting to pursue this agenda in a spirit of building
a consensus. I think that will be a very valuable if we could
indeed do so across the main political parties. I think the most
difficult thing in many ways in government is when objectives
fall in between two departments. This is a classic area where
we can see that something that could be done by the Department
of Health could enormously help reduce knife crime. If I had to
do one thing, taking the view as a government rather than specifically
narrowing it to the field of Home Office matters, it would be
to introduce the so-called Cardiff model right the way across
accident and emergency departments across the UK. I was alarmed
to discover from the Home Office that they did not know, because
they had not collected the data centrally, how many accident and
emergency departments are actually participating with local police
forces in reporting on an anonymised basis the location and type
of knife crime. Therefore, we put in a freedom of information
request. Out of the 148 that have responded to date—there
are 168 NHS acute hospital trusts—only 25 have said that
they are currently sharing data on the Cardiff model. This is
tremendously significant because we know that the Cardiff model
was introduced at the initiative actually of the cosmetic surgeon,
Professor Jonathan Shepherd, who may have given evidence to you
in the past. It has actually had the effect of reducing knife
crime within that area by 40%. I think there is definitely progress
going on in terms of the Government's Tackling Knifes Action Programme.
We have seen, for example, a very sharp reduction in the number
of people admitted to hospital with stab wounds in England, which
Vernon Coaker was talking about in the House yesterday. If we
were to roll this essential intelligence-gathering tool out to
other areas, and I remain to be persuaded on the basis of the
freedom of information request we have had back that it is even
operating in all the Tackling Knifes Action Programme areas at
the moment, we would find a very dramatic effect on knife crime
right the way across the country. It is a classic example of where
we know something works but how do we actually deliver it, how
do we get best practice rolled out as quickly as possible?
Q523 Mr Streeter: You may already
have answered this in part, and you mentioned the Cardiff model.
How would you approach knife crime differently from the current
Government? Obviously that is the main plank but would there be
other things that would differ?
Chris Huhne: We published a document
called A Life away from Crime, which includes our thoughts
on knife crime, but which is more broadly about tackling youth
offending and how to try to head off young men in particular from
getting entangled in the criminal justice system before they then
proceed to go through the whole set of hoops. We know, for example,
that custody is extremely ineffective in dealing with young men
in particular at an early stage and if short sentences are used,
you find very high reoffending rates; 92% for example for a first
custodial sentence for young men, and three-quarters for juveniles
going into custody. So anything we can do to head people off at
the part before they get formally entangled in the criminal justice
system seems to us to be terribly important. We have put forward
a number of suggestions there, one of which is to try and develop
measures short of criminalising young people if they are involved
in low level crime and antisocial behaviour to ensure that they
do not then go on to graduate to more serious things. We have
put down an amendment for the Policing and Crime Bill for example
which would allow police officers and PCSOs to issue a penalty
notice actually to get a young person to clear up any mess that
they have created or indeed clear up graffiti or try and make
recompense. That would be directly dealing with something without
getting them getting involved in the criminal justice system,
but a very quick response. We have put forward a whole series
of proposals to try and ensure that the devil does not make work
for idle hands to do, that there are adequate diversionary activities
for young people. One of the stories of the last 20 years is that
there has been a run down in many areas of youth facilities and
that has had an effect in providing, unfortunately, bad incentives
for young people to get involved in other activities. I would
very happily send a copy of that document to the committee.
Chairman: Thank you, that would be extremely
helpful.
Q524 Ms Buck: I wonder what your
view is of the statistics produced this week which show an increase
in the number of offenders being jailed for knife-related offences.
Chris Huhne: My view is essentially
that custody is not the most effective way. I think custody is
absolutely essential for serious offenders and for serial offenders,
but I do not think that it is the most effective way of dealing
with the problem that we have here with knife crime. The most
effective way is to get intelligence as to where the problem is,
which is why the Cardiff model is so crucial, and also why the
relationship between local police and local communities is so
crucial so that in many cases, particularly problem estates, they
know exactly who is the intimidating presence behind and running
gangs. Getting in and making sure that we have that intelligence
is absolutely crucial and getting a visible police presence so
that there is stop and search, so that people can be targeted
on the basis of intelligence. I think that is much more likely
than custody for a very simple reason that custody affects very
few people compared with the total amount of criminality. What
we need to do if we are going to be effective in our deterrent
is to ensure that we increase the amount of detection, increase
the visibility and, but this is something which I know is not
a populous message because we see it as a populous debate between
the Government and the Conservative Party constantly, tougher
sentencing. The Home Office's own research and the international
evidence show very clearly that there is no link between custody
and deterrent, whereas there is a very clear link between detection
and deterrent. I think we need to re-focus a lot of our public
debate on what works, on what the evidence is, and the evidence
suggests that it is actually detection which matters much more.
Q525 Ms Buck: You do accept that
there has been a dramatic increase in terms of visible policing
through safe neighbourhood policing, for example, that that actually
is happening? You are not positing a hypothetical solution to
the problem.
Chris Huhne: No, I have seen,
for example, and I do not think there is any mystery about this,
that what the Government has been encouraging the police to do
is well established in operational policing. I have seen, for
example, what happened in Newham in London and I visited there
and talked to officers involved in doing knife arch searches and
the way into local commercial malls and so forth and it is very
effective. What I think is not happening is that we are not rolling
out the things that we know are effective everywhere they should
be rolled out, and so there is a delivery problem. We know what
best practice is. What we are not doing is applying best practice
everywhere as quickly as we should.
Q526 David Davies: As hospitals have
already been mentioned, I will refer to something else. First,
you may or may not agree that there is no link between custody
and deterrence but the point is reduction, is it not? Would you
not agree that if somebody is in custody, they cannot be out committing
further crimes and, more importantly, the police are able to look
at other people rather than somebody going in, being arrested,
going through that process which takes many man-hours and they
are back out in the street after they have been bailed committing
a second offence?
Chris Huhne: Let me make it very
clear. I said that there has to be custody, there has to be prison,
for people who are serious offenders and people who are serial
offenders. I absolutely stand by that. I think if someone is a
danger to the public, they should be locked up—full stop.
I do not disagree with your point on that at all. The real question
is that if you look at the Home Office evidence with the sorts
of issues that we are dealing with here on knife carrying and
knife criminals, we know that many young people carry knives because
they are afraid and therefore if you actually get enough police
out there with enough of a visible presence, that can reassure
people and cut down the incentive to carry knifes. That is a more
effective way of doing it than, for example, saying that there
should be, as Chris Grayling said, a presumption to lock people
up.
Q527 David Davies: Let us take that
at face value. It is not something I entirely disagree with anyway,
but if you are going to get more police officers out there and
if you believe the fear of being caught is a better deterrent,
then why would you not support changes to the stop and search
legislation that, for example, would allow the police to take
into account somebody's previous criminal record in determining
whether to carry out a section 1 stop-and-search? You have said
yourself that you have no time for serial offenders. Somebody
with a serial criminal record is a serial offender. If they have
had an offence within the last 12 months of carrying a knife,
surely it is reasonable, if they are stopped for any offence—not
picked off the street but stopped for an offence of some sort—the
police should be able to carry out a section 1 case?
Chris Huhne: I am perfectly happy
to support in all circumstances the work Jan Berry is doing to
cut down unnecessary paperwork. I think that is absolutely sensible.
What I do not want to see is us to throw the baby out with the
bathwater. I am absolutely convinced we can cut police bureaucracy,
cut police paperwork, and introduce better IT. What I do not want
to see is a situation, which we had frankly with the relationship
between the police and ethnic minority communities at the beginning
of the 1980s, when people think they are being picked on.
Q528 David Davies: Nobody wants to
go back to that. You are aware that the section 1 case makes it
quite clear; the Act actually says that police officers shall
not take any account of a person's previous criminal record in
determining whether or not to carry out a stop and search. So
you have a situation of a police officer stopping someone for
a minor issue—perhaps begging, ticket evasion or something
similar—and he carries out a PNC check; the person has a
long history of carrying knives. The police office thinks: I would
like to pat that person down but I cannot do it. I cannot see
a knife handle sticking out of their pocket. I know that they
regularly carry knives but I cannot carry out a search. Is that
right or wrong?
Chris Huhne: I certainly believe
that it is sensible to look at issues like that. I think, frankly,
the circumstances that you are describing are quite unlikely in
big city areas where you actually have a knife problem. The reason
why is simply that I am afraid the evidence that there is going
to be the sort of institutional memory that you are talking about
from one police officer to another based in a large city environment
where you have serious knife crime problems is actually pretty
slim. I could believe that for example in a police force where
you have a fairly settled population, where you have a much greater
knowledge between the police force and the local community, but
in those circumstances, frankly, there are not the danger areas
we are talking about in terms of knife crime. I think the circumstances
that you are posting are slightly academic.
David Davies: No, they are not. They
have happened to me.
Q529 Gwyn Prosser: Mr Huhne, can
you tell us a bit more about your idea for a volunteer force and
how will it detract and reduce crime?
Chris Huhne: In the paper, which
I will send the committee, are various ideas for increasing diversion,
if you like, for young people on the key principle that if we
have more youth facilities and more means of activity, both sporting,
cultural and the Youth Volunteer Force that we are talking about,
we may be able to head some of these kids off from a life of low-level
crime and then worse. The Youth Volunteer Force we would like
to pioneer with a number of local authorities. The idea would
be to put together a force in a particular area which could have
a whole series of tasks, which hopefully would appeal to young
people. In my own area, for example, there is currently a big
project underway being partially supported by the local authority
and partly by Lottery funds to try to improve the Itchen Navigation,
which is an old canal, and make sure that its banks are not falling
in. It is open air work. It is very clear that there is a good
public purpose because, in the end, all the communities along
the navigation are going to be able to enjoy that, and hopefully
that is precisely the sort of work one might be able to get a
youth volunteer force involved with. Many local charities—Age
Concern, Help the Aged to name two—could potentially have
projects which young people could be involved with. Anything which
helps to get young people committed to the local community seems
to me to be a desirable objective, particularly where there is
an inter-generational issue. I think many old people, if they
do not have direct experience of grandchildren or whatever, can
be rather afraid of groups of young people. I think it would be
helpful to try to create those links. So we have suggested a youth
volunteer force and that we should ask local authorities that
are interested in trying to pilot this to come forward with ideas,
including a range of projects, and that that should be supported
by central government and taken from there.
Q530 Patrick Mercer: Mr Huhne, you
have talked about schools being able to counteract gang behaviour.
Could you expand a bit more, please?
Chris Huhne: Yes. It is not easy.
I think gang behaviour is very ingrained, not obviously violent
gangs, but certainly there seems to be something in human psychology
and certainly child psychology that desires to be part of a group.
I think that where schools feel that there is an unhealthy growth
of a gang that may be involved in other activity, it is absolutely
essential that there is enough early warning there and that the
school is attempting to contact the parents. If the parents are
not sympathetic and are not prepared to try and help and head
the school off, then obviously it is important also to be talking
to social services and to the local police force. There are a
number of activities within schools which help break down some
of that sense of creating gangs. One clearly is any sport activity.
Almost by definition, if you are getting kids involved in teams,
those teams are not going to fall within the same boundaries as
gangs. Another potentially, which I have seen in my own constituency
in a very effective secondary school called Wildern that has had
a dramatic improvement in its GCSE results and in the breakdown
of performance between boys and girls, dramatically improving
boys, is a stress on performance: music, theatre, anything that
actually gets kids working together, performing on stage and not
doing things which are setting each other apart. I think there
is a whole range of things, but the best thing we can do is experiment,
share best practice where there have been successes and again
try and roll it out. I do not claim that we have a whole answer
to that.
Q531 Mrs Dean: Could you tell us
what the Liberal Party's view is of how to tackle gun culture
outside of school? You have talked about inside schools. Do you
think it is important that we are careful not to use the term
"gang" so that we do not demonise all young people?
Chris Huhne: I entirely agree.
I think that one of the most unhappy aspects of the public debate
over the last ten years has been an increasing tendency to demonise
young people and the vast majority of young people are absolutely
straight, honest, public spirited and want to be an accepted and
hardworking part of the community. We must never forget that.
I think your question implies that there has become some sort
of low level or even high level criminality issue perhaps on particular
estates. I gave some example of that when I previously said I
thought it was absolutely essential that there is a very good
relationship between the police and the local community because
local communities often know where the problems are. They may
be intimidated; they may not want to come forward, but the police
can of course respect confidentiality, can take intelligence and
then use that to do targeted stop and search. That seems to me
to be a very effective way of trying to get at gang ringleaders.
I think that is the key aspect of the policing that I would recommend
in this particular case but none of that of course is new or by
any means Liberal Democrat; it is straightforward, good, operational
policing.
Q532 Mr Winnick: You were in the
room when you heard the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary saying
that he was rather critical of the way in which the Government
has acted over stop and search. Do you share that criticism?
Chris Huhne: To be honest, I was
not listening always to his evidence. Could you perhaps spell
out specifically what the criticism was then I will reply? I was
looking at my own notes.
Q533 Mr Winnick: Not listening to
his evidence, I am glad to say, is not a criminal offence! He
thought that part of the solution—he was not for one moment
suggesting it was the whole solution—to resolve the amount
of knife crime was to give the power to the police to stop and
search, more so than at present. Do you share that view?
Chris Huhne: I think the police
have adequate stop and search powers now. The most important thing
is to ensure that those stop and search powers are used not only
in a proportionate way but are used on as much intelligence as
possible. Nobody in any community is going to object if the police
have serious intelligence that suggests for example that some
gang leader is regularly intimidating other people on an estate
if they are targeted for stop and search, and that is precisely
the intelligence-led stop and search which I think is most effective
in terms of police resources and it is most effective in terms
of getting results. Random stop and search frankly is not a very
effective way of tacking these sorts of problems; it is not a
sensible use of police time. So intelligence of the sort that
can be generated by the Cardiff model, of the sort that is generated
by good relationships between local police forces and the local
community is precisely what we ought to be encouraging.
Q534 Mr Winnick: There have been,
has there not, difficulties in the past, antagonism, arising from
the way in which the police have acted over stop and search which
many believe far from helping to deal with crime, undermine the
campaign against criminality?
Chris Huhne: I think you are absolutely
right. I particularly remember, as I am sure you do, the run-up
to the Brixton riots in the early 1980s where, frankly, the operation
of the then SUS laws soured the relationship between the black
community in Brixton and the Metropolitan Police in a way that
it took a long time to repair. We know, and police officer know,
that you only have effective policing if you have the consent
and co-operation of local communities because you need two key
things in any reasonable liberal democracy in order to secure
a conviction: one is that you need the intelligence of what is
happening, and that requires a willing co-operation of the local
community; secondly, you need people to come forward as witnesses,
and that too requires the co-operation of the local community.
I think all that is absolutely essential to look at the proportionality
of what is being proposed.
Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr Huhne,
for sharing that important information with us. We will make sure
that it is reflected in our report. Thank you very much for coming.
I am sure we sill see you again in due course.
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