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Knife Crime

Yes, it has happened before. My constituents are understandably very shocked and saddened by this crime. As I was about to say, it horrifically echoes another case that happened in a nearby constituency. Tina Stevenson was murdered in Hull some four years ago as she walked home from antenatal classes, and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned a similar case in his constituency. When we are dealing with knife crime, we have to look beyond young people and take account of the danger posed by other people using knives on our streets. People in my community are in a state of shock, and they need to be reassured that the criminal justice system will not let Claire and her family down. Because of this crime, the mood in Grimsby and Cleethorpes is that residents feel that their towns have become lawless. They also feel that they cannot go out: the randomness of the attack means that everyone is more fearful of becoming a victim of crime. That has wiped out a lot of the good work that the police have done in tackling volume crime and antisocial behaviour. Sadly, it has wound the clock back on people's fear of crime, which is often out of kilter with the likelihood of their becoming a victim. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) is the Minister of State who is here listening to the debate, as he is familiar with the justice system. There is certainly a mood among people at the moment that sentences for knife crimes are far too low. I realise that progress has been made, but people certainly feel that knife crimes are not taken seriously enough. I want to talk now about a couple of other things, namely the gang culture and young men. I intervened on the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) earlier because it is right to say that far too many of the young men who get sucked into gang culture or who end up in young offender institutions and subsequently prison have atrociously poor literacy and numeracy skills. Because persistent young offenders tend to be given lots of short sentences, we never seem to address their lack of those skills as well as we should. I know that people want to do more in that regard, but too often it appears that the problem is not addressed and the result is that people coming out of young offender institutions cannot get jobs. The economic climate is not good for anyone, but least of all for people with very poor literacy and numeracy skills. If we are to tackle knife crime at all levels, we must tackle the educational attainment of people in our criminal justice system, particularly young men. In North East Lincolnshire some phenomenal work is being done by the police with vulnerable young people, such as fair play football, as they call it, for the boys. Points are awarded not just for scoring goals, but if, after a tackle, the players shake hands and make up. That does not sound much, but the sense of fair play, respect for others and working collectively in a team is important in trying to break cycles that have persisted for some time in many of our inner-city communities. The girls are not being ignored. They have been doing dance classes. The work is having a powerful effect on the young people in our area. It is not just the police who are engaged in such work. One of the neighbourhood watches near where I live has been working with young people in one of the more deprived communities in Cleethorpes. With the young lads, they have been using sports such as football and many other activities to try to break the attraction of gang culture. The desire to belong, which is typical of many young men, makes them want to be part of a gang and leads to many territorial disputes. The challenge is to make young people feel that they belong to the community in which they live. Some youngsters get the sense from adults that the young people are committing all the antisocial behaviour, so they almost feel rejected by their own community and are seen as bad lads, for example. Adults adopting an inclusive approach towards the young people in their community, which they probably have not always done in the past, is having a powerful effect on those young people. If any Minister could come up and see examples of such work, I would very much appreciate it. Grimsby-Cleethorpes on the east coast of Britain is a bit of a hike to get to, but some powerful work is being undertaken by the police, neighbourhood watch and voluntary groups to do their best to tackle antisocial behaviour and deal with persistent young offenders. That is why the loss of Claire in the murder earlier this week is doubly sad. People feel that all that good work has been wiped out and has not had an effect. The communities know that the work is happening, but there is a sense that the town has become lawless. If there is one comment that has been made to me over the past few days, it is, "What on earth has our town come to?" It is very sad that people have had to say that. I hope we get justice for Claire and her family, but our whole community has suffered.