Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 25 February 2008.
In the areas on which we focused, we have learned important lessons about how to identify gang members at an early stage, and how to use all the resources in the hands of the police, particularly things such as covert surveillance, to do so. We have learned more about how we can mediate and put in place services that prevent the escalation of violence between gangs. We have learned about how we can prevent young people from being drawn into gangs in the first place, and how to ensure that there are exit strategies to get them out at the end. Alongside that, we have taken action to cut off and reduce the supply of guns into the country. All of those are aspects of success of the Tackling Gangs action programme, and they can all be shared more widely at the end of the programme.