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Youth Violence (London)

I, too, start by congratulating the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) not only on having the good sense to secure this important debate, but on regularly speaking up in Parliament about London-wide issues. I think that I am, unfortunately, the Member with the largest number of knife murders this year in my constituency. As those events unfolded, my constituents and I were not prepared for what was about to happen, and we did not fully understand the gravity of the issues that we would have to face. [Sir John Butterfill in the Chair] Today, I shall draw out three issues that are critical if we are to deal effectively with the wave of knife and gun crime in the capital. I hope that the Minister will address them all in his response. The first issue, which I have touched on in questions that I have asked previously, is the lack of adequate research into some of these issues. I have two examples to demonstrate that, one of which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. He discussed the territorial aspect of much of the friction that occurs in relation to prisons, but there is much evidence emerging in my constituency that people who live in the N18 area will not cross into the N9 area. I am sure that there are similar problems in other constituencies. We do not fully understand that problem, and more research is required to do so. My second point relates to gang culture. There was an interesting seminar last week, which many hon. Members present attended, at which detailed research was discussed. Most of that research is going on in other parts of the country, but the area most affected by this problem is Greater London. We need much more research into gang culture. I suggest to the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) that understanding why and how horrific incidents take place, including the reasons for them, would take us a long way forward in producing policies in response to such incidents. Several hon. Members have mentioned schools. They play a critical role, but not in the conventional sense. It is the wrong approach to talk about introducing wands and other mechanisms to find out which pupils are carrying weapons. We need to monitor what is happening in schools, because much of the evidence that has emerged in recent years suggests that exclusion is the first alarm bell regarding possible antisocial problems. It is obvious that schools have a role to play in that regard. They know when there are difficulties at home and where there are fractured families. They know, from the exclusions themselves, that antisocial behaviour is beginning to occur. When kids are permanently excluded, they are well on their way to some of the difficulties that we are experiencing across London. Schools play a critical role, but that role should be about information, education and trying to bring kids back in, rather than excluding them. Schools should involve other agencies when they are experiencing difficulties, and they should be able to include all pupils in their activities. The third area that I want to discuss is our short-term approach, because there is a need to reassure the community that we are dealing with gun and knife crime effectively. We have Operation Blunt to disrupt the activities of gangs and youths who are involved in antisocial behaviour and violent crime, and we need to look at the criminal justice system. I ask hon. Members to look carefully at how the youth justice system is responding to this wave of violence. There has been a greater recognition that cautioning is not good enough, but I think we should go further. The latest case in my constituency was a murder at the beginning of the year. The young person who was found guilty of that crime was given only a five-year sentence. I will not comment directly on that case as I am sure that specific factors led the court and jury to that decision. However, I point to the signal that it sends out about how seriously we are dealing with the problems. There is a role for the whole criminal justice system in taking care to ensure that we send out the right signals about how seriously we treat these issues. I hope that the Minister will respond to those points. Once again, I congratulate everybody on contributing to this debate on what is a very important issue.