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The Riots

It is the first time that I have spoken under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. Welcome to the Chair. We have had an interesting debate. I intend to be brief, so I will skip over some of my comments rather than repeat the contributions of others. I echo other Members in supporting the comments made by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), particularly about not demonising young people. I found it hard to disagree with nearly everything that he said, but I am angry that the Secretary of State for Justice has spoken about feral children and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has spoken about ghettoes. That is a slur on my constituency and many others, and on many of my friends and neighbours and the friends of my children. I hope that the measured comments made by the hon. Member for Croydon Central and most colleagues here are more reflective of the reality of the Government's thinking than the knee-jerk reactions to media headlines. We need to be aware of stereotypes. The pictures and the arrest record—I have seen the pictures myself, as have other Members—show that a number of older people wearing work clothes were involved in looting. There is still work to be done. We are analysing the figures in Hackney to see exactly who was involved—the figure keeps changing, so I will not quote anything now. CCTV has been instrumental in solving this, and I am pleased to hear a strong feeling from all parties in the House that CCTV is here to stay and has a role to play. When people talk about civil liberties, I simply ask whose civil liberties they mean. My constituents want more, not less. The majority of those involved in Hackney—on Clarence road and the Narrow way, which is in the heart of my constituency and was at the heart of the troubles—were over 18 years old. About 16 businesses were very badly damaged. We were very fortunate that we did not suffer the same problems as Croydon and Tottenham. That was largely down to the very good work of the fire service, which sat in our excellent CCTV centre and ensured that any dangerous fires were dealt with quickly and that others were allowed to burn out. That was really important and shows that, with good co-operation across the emergency services, some of the worst aspects that hit other places can sometimes be prevented. I agree that race has been subject to an unfortunate stereotype. I echo the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). The comments of illustrious academics and the way in which they were made on ““Newsnight”” were very unhelpful, have caused great ill feeling in my constituency, and do not reflect the general people whom I represent, whatever their colour or background. I know that the Minister does not represent the Home Office, but he is a representative of Her Majesty's Government, so I point out to him that they need to look at the issue of police numbers. Surely it is time to rethink. We had issues about the number of police available in Hackney on the night of 8 August. They were able to hold a line but no more. The fact that it took two to arrest people meant that it was impossible to do the arrests while maintaining the line and preventing further damage and looting to property in my borough. That meant that people such as Siva Khandian, a shopkeeper whom many will have seen pictured in newspapers, had his shop completely ransacked and looted. Others suffered similarly. Residents in Clapton square were scared stiff because cars were burning outside their homes. I do not blame the police, but it meant that there were real challenges. If this is a time for cross-party consensus, we should pause for thought and look at the numbers of police available in London. I join the Mayor of London, with whom I agree on this occasion, in saying that we need seriously to make sure that we have the policing numbers available to tackle such problems and, crucially, to deal with our ongoing community issues. I want to touch on the issue of stop and search. I do not have time to develop my arguments, because many other Members wish to speak. My right hon. Friend raised some interesting points. I, too, am not against stop and search, but I think that attitude is an issue—the attitude of the police, in terms of courtesy and respect as they carry out a stop and search, as well as the attitude of those who are stopped and searched. I hear strong views from young people and their parents, who feel aggrieved that their children and they themselves are stopped frequently. There are also young people who tell me, ““I'm glad that I was stopped, because I know that a person carrying a knife or a gun will also be stopped.”” In Hackney, when there have been serious complaints about officers and they have been identified, some have been dismissed from the service of the Metropolitan police because of their attitude during stop and search. The Metropolitan police need to publicise that more. I urge the Minister to take that back to his colleagues at the Home Office, because parents and young people come to me so often to raise their concerns and it is difficult to pinpoint what action to take. I am not pinpointing individuals—I am sure that there are confidentiality issues—but it is important to say that the police have standards and where they have the evidence they will act and remove bad apples from the cart. It is also important that the community makes complaints that are specific and not generalisations. I am sure that many Members have attended meetings in which people rail against the police in general terms. When I and others, including police officers who are present, ask them for specifics, they respond with nothing. As a Member of Parliament, I need those specifics—I am happy to be a third-party reporting body and pass them on, and I do when I get them—but I rarely get them. They are important. We are short of time, so I will ask some particulars of the Minister. The Riots Communities and Victims Panel is visiting a number of areas in which riots took place, but, as I understand it, Darra Singh and his team do not, at present, intend to visit Hackney. Why is that? I do not necessarily expect an answer, but will the Minister at least write to me to explain why that is the case? We could then look at getting Darra Singh and his team to visit, which would be helpful, because I think there are lessons that we can pass on to other areas. The Home Office has agreed to meet me, as the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch. I am concerned that, due to personnel changes in the ministerial team, that agreement has slipped. The Government report on this issue and gangs in particular is due out at the end of this month, but we are already halfway through it. I hope that the Minister will take that concern back to his Home Office colleagues. Has a Communities and Local Government Minister met with key groups in Hackney that are doing interesting work? The trading places scheme is funded by the council through the Crib youth group, led ably by Janette Collins and her colleagues. It gets young people to trade places with key professionals, including police officers, to do exactly what I think the hon. Member for Croydon Central suggested—getting people to understand each other's points of view. That is proving successful and lessons could be learned for other areas. It is important that it is looked at and replicated, if necessary. On evictions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) talked about knee-jerk reactions, about which we must be wary. Evicting people because of riot involvement sounds easy, but we need to beware the law of unintended consequences. Let me be clear: those involved in these riots deserve punishment. My constituents are clear about that, too. However, at two recent Clapton conferences in my constituency Hackney residents demonstrated a real understanding of the complexities of the situation. They were talking about wider issues than the riots alone, but they recognised that, in some cases, antisocial behaviour, particularly by the youngest, is a result of chaotic family backgrounds and situations. Under the proposals that some have made, those differences would not be highlighted and people could be evicted and more problems created as a result. Where do these people go? Will they be put into the private sector, unable to pay and keep up with rent? What would that do to other members of the household? Hackney council supports the same tough approach as I do to crime and antisocial behaviour. Prior to the events of 8 August, it had already begun a wider review of tenancy agreements that included possible changes to conditions relating to antisocial behaviour, gang activity, domestic violence and irresponsible dog ownership. The council is also discussing similar proposals with other large landlords in Hackney. The issue, however, is more legally challenging than it is made out to be. I do not have time to go into that, but a legal definition of ““locality,”” for instance, limits what can be done. I am all for eviction, where necessary, under the current tenancy agreement, but to say that people should be evicted just because of the riots is an issue that needs to be addressed. Issues relating to home owners versus tenants are also important. We all also need to bear in mind the many intergenerational households in my constituency and elsewhere as a result of the shortage of family homes. That could mean three generations of a family being put out with nowhere to go. In a debate yesterday, I talked about the impact on young people of the cuts to education maintenance allowance and so on, so I will not go into that, but it is worth highlighting some good news stories and how the community rallied around. Residents raised more than £20,000 for Siva Khandian, who owned the convenience store in Clarence road that he saw his neighbours looting. Street sweepers worked through the night, clearing up as the riots continued around them. Council officers put in extra unpaid hours, to support businesses in particular. Police slept in the corridors of the police station, because it was not worth their while to go home—they wanted to be there and cancelled their leave. Residents came to clean up the next day. Residents and businesses joined forces for a street party in Clarence road on 15 August. Jamie Cowen, the managing director of Your Square Mile, contacted me and said that he has some money that he wants to make sure goes to the riot-affected areas. People across the board—I have named only a few—have made a big difference. I do not have time to go into the issues surrounding gangs, but I am sure that we will have time to debate them again. I emphasise to the Minister that we have good experience of what integrated gang intervention can do. Gang violence dropped by 59% in six months after our joint multi-agency gang intervention unit, based in Hackney town hall, was formed. There are some lessons to be learned there. Early intervention is vital. Important youth work is taking place with younger children from the age of eight onwards. In the schools that I visit, there is a real issue with eight and nine-year-olds getting hooked into gang culture. A small number of people are involved in gangs, but the wider fear is my big concern—the parents who take their children out of school and to different areas, and the fact that young people are afraid to walk the streets. Of those involved, young people were not in the majority. However, if these events mean that we focus on gangs, the fear of walking down the street and other fears that young people have, some good can come out of the terrible events of that weekend in August.