Inner Cities

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 1:20 pm on 25 March 1994.

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Photo of Mr Richard Tracey Mr Richard Tracey , Surbiton 1:20, 25 March 1994

I am grateful for being able to speak in this debate and glad that I have been able to listen to it. Times have not changed. When I was a Minister at the Department of the Environment, I had to deal with many such problems.

My hon. Friend the Minister cited a long list of what is being done, primarily through the Department of the Environment, and we heard many complaints from Opposition Members about shortfalls and inaccurate targeting of funding.

I do not want to concentrate on matters that involve the Department, because one aspect of inner-city problems worries me above all others. No matter how much money the Government have poured into innovative schemes and enterprises, while people in the inner cities perceive that they are at great risk from crime, burglary, mugging and —even more important—women fear violent assault and rape, I have to wonder whether we have achieved anything.

Perhaps crimes are more a perception than a reality. One of the polling organisations published research this week suggesting that, above all else, people fear being mugged and burgled. I read in my morning newspaper today about some research by Labour-controlled authorities in London, which shows that insurance companies are drawing a red line around London because it is an area of much greater risk for them. Are people in London taking the right precautions to protect themselves against burglaries and car crimes?

Interestingly, Mr. Michael Grade, of the television industry, apparently told us that people's perception of crime is enhanced and enlivened excessively as a result of television programmes, such as "Crimewatch" and the series showing re-enacted crimes that the film producer Michael Winner has been bringing to our television screens. I do not know whether crime is more a perception than a reality, but I know that we must look for solutions to the problems of inner cities.

Above all, our police forces must receive full support for their efforts—in London, that means the Metropolitan police—and that support must come from individuals, communities and local councils. We were all pleased to hear of the success of Operation Bumblebee—a Metropolitan police campaign against burglary. Since 1991, when it started, 5,000 arrests have been made and more than 10,000 burglaries have been solved in north London alone. Fifteen thousand fewer houses were burgled in the Metropolitan police area in 1993 than in the previous year. That shows some success, and perhaps some of the perceptions of the British people have not been entirely accurate. Nevertheless, people continue to be frightened.

We have had the initiatives in community co-operation of neighbourhood watch and of the police and community group set up in each borough to tell the police what people desire. We have had home beat policing, to try to bring policemen closer to the home communities, and the Metropolitan police are now conducting an operation called sector policing. Obviously, efforts are being made to combat exaggerated perceptions of the likelihood of crime and to combat crime when it happens.

In combating crime and in making people aware of their community duties, we must start with young people. In the inner-city boroughs of London and, indeed, in the outer London boroughs, junior citizenship schemes have been set up whereby the police work with the councils and schools to ensure that young people understand from the beginning what their duties are. I am very pleased about that. One London borough has introduced its sports development officers on to all the estates. All the areas that suffer the deprivation described by some hon. Members might be able to introduce young people to pursuits that will keep them off the streets and keep them out of crime. All that is helpful.

I know of the work of some of the councils in inner London and I am especially impressed by one. It will not surprise hon. Members that it is Wandsworth borough council, which has tackled— [Interruption]—The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) may scoff, but the tackling of those problems often depends on what councils and councillors are prepared to do with their resources, together with the police, teachers and so on in the area.

I have here a file of the various schemes and measures that have been instituted by Wandsworth borough council throughout the borough to combat crime. One or two hon. Members mentioned closed circuit television. It is unfortunate that doubts were expressed in Birmingham city council about closed circuit television and the fact that there might be undue surveillance of people's private actions. Nevertheless, in Wandsworth, with sponsorship from local business, closed circuit television has been introduced in several of the main high streets where the council is well aware, as a result of police research, that there are real problems and threats to the populace. It has introduced mobile closed circuit television operations to cut motor car crime and break-ins to motor cars.

I have also been most impressed by the way in which progressively, as a result of forming a crime prevention policy review panel, Wandsworth borough council has considered designing out crime in alleyways and in the remote areas away from the streets and away from the main movement of the public. It has thereby cut many of the easy escape routes that criminals would have had. It has also introduced better lighting in car parks and in side streets.

Those measures have proved to the criminal fraternity that there is no point in trying to continue their criminal activities and they have proved to the local people that they are safer than they may have believed.

The proof is contained in the statistics that the officers of that inner-city council have given me. The crime rate per person in Wandsworth is almost 30 per cent. lower than the inner London average and continues to be the lowest in inner London. Comparing Wandsworth—as we so often do in the House and outside—with its neighbour, the borough of Lambeth, we find that Wandsworth has 31 per cent. less crime per person. Compared with 10 other inner London boroughs, Wandsworth had the lowest rate of burglary and violence against the person. Lambeth had 182 per cent. more crimes against the person, 112 per cent. more robberies and 40 per cent. more burglaries.

It is clear that councillors, together with the community, must tackle the threat of crime and the criminal fraternity if those idle hands are not to get away with their activities. Before we consider putting more money into programmes, we have a duty to ensure that we protect our people, as the London borough of Wandsworth has succeeded in doing.