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Youth Violence (London)

Thank you, Mr. Olner, for allowing me to make a brief contribution to this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) on obtaining this debate; his contribution on his own inner-London borough was very thoughtful. It is a tribute to the importance of this debate that so many hon. Members have turned out today. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) and from the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling). This is a major issue about which we all feel very strongly. To be brutally honest, I fear that we will not necessarily be able to find an enormous number of solutions out of hon. Member's speeches, and I confess that much of what I shall say will be to put on the record some of the concerns in the city of Westminster. In the past six months there have been some 303 recorded youth violence incidents in Westminster—a 6 per cent. drop from the previous year. We can all be pleased with that reduction, although I take on board a number of the concerns about the reliability of certain statistics, particularly in relation to the more serious aspects, such as knife crime. The very great majority of youngsters in London constitute a positive and valued part of London's population, but find themselves tarred with a particular brush and considered a problem in their youth—that probably happened in all our youths, but it seems to be an even more prevalent media story today. I am not complaining about the media, and one fully understands that some of these terrible crimes need to be covered, but the fact remains that the great majority of London's youngsters are extremely hardworking and thoughtful. We have all visited schools. It never ceases to surprise us how well genned up are many of our youngsters on matters political and how in many other ways they are able to make a great contribution. It must be extremely difficult to be brought up in the very busy parts of London, particularly of inner London, where there are relatively few things for teenagers to do.