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Crime (London)

I hope to please hon. Members in all parts of the House with my speech, as I do not intend to read statistics or to insult any candidate standing in the mayoral elections next week. I am sure that everyone in all parts of the House will know who I am supporting: the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson). I start by paying tribute to my local borough commander, Dave Grant, and his police force and police community support officers, who do a wonderful job in my constituency of Ilford, North, and across Redbridge. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) read out statistics relating to my local borough and said that in Redbridge crime had dropped. We should commend the Conservative council in Redbridge for taking over when the Government stopped its funding for street wardens, and for paying for those wardens with local taxpayers' money, and not from the Mayor's budget. We should pay full tribute to those who deserve it—to Councillor Weinberg and the council in Redbridge. People want to hear us discussing today the issues that are important to them. Putting aside what the statistics show, last Wednesday night I attended an area committee and a crime forum in my constituency, and I heard people say what they are honestly concerned about. That is what I want to talk about today. Whether we are talking about crime or a fear of crime, people are worried. Elderly people come to me and say that they are concerned about going out in the evenings. Recently, I went round some of my local underground stations. My constituency has one of the highest number of underground stations of any constituency outside central London. I was quite upset to find that some of them are not manned; there was no one there. We recently found that some CCTV cameras, the introduction of which was lauded by all, including me, were not actually plugged in. They were not recording anything, either live or for playback later. We have to be realistic, and we have to react to the issues that our constituents across London are concerned about. Colleagues in all parts of the House will forgive me if I say that sometimes I get concerned, and that I fully understand why people do not vote in any elections—a problem that we should all be worried about. The reason they do not vote is the way we conduct ourselves sometimes. On occasions, we should be ashamed of ourselves for that. Bus usage has gone up, which is good. Train usage is up, too. However, crime relating to buses and trains, no matter how low level it is, is going up, too, and it has to be tackled. What do I mean by that? A few weeks ago I was at a station in my constituency where I felt intimidated by groups of youths hanging around. I am sure the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) will understand what I mean, because the station is only a few stops from his constituency. If I felt intimidated—I like to think that I can look after myself—what would somebody more elderly or, indeed, younger, feel? The police should be given the powers that they need. On a recent occasion I accompanied my local police force. They made an arrest and spent hours afterwards filling in forms. That is wrong. As was said earlier, the handcuffs should be taken off our police and they should be allowed to do the job that they are there to do and arrest criminals. In the outer suburbs of London antisocial behaviour is a major issue. I do not believe that many of the youths who congregate want to commit crime or even mean to commit crime. They do not realise how they intimidate people in various housing areas in my constituency. I met them one Sunday and asked whether they would like their grandparents to experience the sort of abuse and intimidation to which they were subjecting people. None of them wanted that. I asked them what they wanted. They wanted an area where they could play football and an area where they could be away from other people. Again, I commend the London borough of Redbridge under its Conservative administration for building a skate park and a cycle track and for setting up a drop-in centre where the youths can go, to stop some of the antisocial behaviour. In the area where that had happened, the ward had seen a dramatic drop of up to 60 per cent. in antisocial behaviour. I believe that that is due to the input going in, backed by councillors of all political parties on Redbridge council.