[Mr. Mike Weir in the Chair] — Gang Crime (London)

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 9:30 am on 6 April 2010.

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Photo of Diane Abbott Diane Abbott Labour, Hackney North and Stoke Newington 9:30, 6 April 2010

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on gang crime in London. This will be my last speech of the current Parliament, and I am fortunate indeed that it is on a subject on which I have worked in different ways all my political career. One of the first things I did as a young woman interested in wider society was help out at a youth club in Paddington, so the issues have always been close to my heart. It is an important subject also because it speaks to social cohesion, to our sense of community and to what is happening to our young people.

Gang crime is of great concern to all our constituents in London, but it would be wrong to move on and discuss my concerns without talking first about what my Government have done on the subject, not least because it will save the Minister from having to go over it. Gangs are part of the wider serious youth violence agenda, and my Government have spent more than £17 million on that agenda since September 2007. Through my Government's work, we have seen tougher enforcement and sentences and new legislation to tackle violent crime and gangs.

The Government have also introduced gang injunctions, which enable local authorities and the police to tackle over-18s involved in gang-related violence by banning them from meeting other gang members, wearing gang colours, hanging around in certain locations and owning dangerous dogs. We are looking to extend that tool to 14 to 17-year-olds. Under a Labour Government we have seen a tightening of the law on gun crime and the introduction of a minimum sentence of five years for possession of an illegal firearm. I have campaigned successfully for a ban on replica weapons, because much of the gun crime in London is perpetrated not with real weapons, but with replica guns that have been rebored for shooting.

The Metropolitan police have also put in place various operations to deal with gun, gang and knife crime, including Operation Blunt, which was set up after the murder of Robert Levy in Hackney in 2005, and I pay tribute to the work his father has done since then on gangs, guns and knives. We have consistently provided funding for local institutions best placed to work on measures that help young people to leave gangs. In April 2010 the Government are pledging a further £5 million to tackle knife crime and serious youth violence.

Having set out my Government's achievements on the issue, and not wishing to detract from what they have done, I will say that we all know that it is not just a question of money, and certainly not just a question of legislation. Some of the legislation to which I have referred has not been used very much so far. It is a multi-dimensional subject, and I want to touch on some of those dimensions in my remarks.

As a consequence of the work that the Government and the Metropolitan police have done, we have seen an overall drop in crime in London. Statistics from the Metropolitan Police Authority from the 12 months to February 2010, when compared with figures for the previous year, appear to show that knife crime in London has decreased, as has youth violence.

The position in my constituency is similar. In fact, the figures seem to demonstrate that crime in Hackney is at its lowest level for 10 years, and I would like to take the opportunity to praise publicly the police in my constituency, and particularly the borough commander, Steve Bending, for their hard work in achieving that milestone. The figures show that the borough has seen a 7 per cent. reduction in knife crime and an 8.6 per cent. reduction in serious youth violence.

However, as a former Home Office official, I know that it is possible to debate the figures. Such statistics are sometimes a matter of art, rather than science. Fear of gang crime-not just the fear of being the victim, but the fear that mothers have about how safe their children are on the streets-has never been higher in my constituency, despite the welcome drop shown by the statistics. When we read about gang crime in the papers, we read about the victims and the gang members are often demonised. None the less, for every gang member and every victim of a gang member there are mothers, parents, families and communities that have been traumatised, and that is what makes it such a widespread concern.