Ms Diane Abbott
MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington · Independent · United Kingdom
“Opposition Members seem to need reminding that the early release programme was devised by a Conservative Government. We have been debating at great length, in the media and among politicians, keeping people in prison for longer.”
“I have been in the House for some of them, and each one was accompanied by the same grand assertions that the Home Secretary has made this afternoon: that they would bring fairness to our immigration system and fairness to our asylum system. They did not. They simply took away rights and treated people badly.”
“People born here were deported. Families were split up. People lost their jobs. Others were denied re-entry to the country after holidays or travelling to family events, including funerals. That scandal is not over, and it is not something that we can move on from.”
“I listened with great care to the Home Secretary’s speech, and one of the things she said—she said it more than once, in different phraseology—was that her legislation is designed to remove the burden of asylum seekers from the shoulders of British people.”
“I would argue that that legislation has failed to do what Ministers said it would do; in fact, it has made people’s lives harsher and more difficult.”
“The Home Secretary will be aware of how important it is to make sure that Members of this House get the protection and defence that they need. At one point, I got as much abuse and as many threats of violence as all the other women MPs put together, so it is important that we take this issue seriously.”
The complete record
Every one of 602 lines we hold for Ms Diane Abbott, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 11 of 13.
“Returning foreign fighters are a real threat to our security. That is a genuine terrorist threat, and I contend that the Government have yet to respond to it adequately. We cannot ignore the fact that there are many hundreds of British foreign fighters in Syria and associated areas. We need a proper programme to deal with them. Arbitrarily stripping people of their citizenship, contrary to international law, is not the answer, not least because it can be challenged in court. Instead of seeking cheap headlines and grandstanding against Shamima Begum, Ministers’ time would be better spent—and our security enhanced—by addressing the real risks and threats posed by foreign fighters, and understanding that if they are British they are Britain’s responsibility and should be subject to the British criminal justice system.”
“We need a more systematic approach and a proper programme for returning foreign fighters—perhaps an extension or an enhancement of the Prevent programme—but the idea that one 19-year-old girl with a two-week-old baby was somehow more dangerous than the 400 foreign fighters who have already returned seems to me to be a difficult position to defend. No less a person than the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that European countries ought to be prepared to take their foreign fighters back from Syria and related territories, and put them on trial, where necessary. It is not often that I find myself agreeing with the President of the United States, but on this point he is correct. How can we expect other countries and jurisdictions to deal with British citizens who have broken British law?”
“If Shamima Begum or anyone else is identified as representing a threat, our judicial system is there to deal with it. We are a country of laws, and it should be clear that dealing with a threat is preferable to not dealing with it, and dumping it on foreign countries. Ministers like to say that they are acting in defence of us all from the terrorist menace. We see from Christchurch, New Zealand, that the terrorist menace, whether Islamic or far right, is real, but does anyone seriously claim that Shamima Begum was more dangerous than the upwards of 400 foreign fighters who have returned from conflict zones, having fought for ISIS, al-Qaeda or their disgusting offshoots or splinter copycat organisations? It is reported just 40 of those fighters have faced any charges, and that the others remain at liberty.”
“The idea that Ministers can unilaterally deprive British citizens of their nationality and render them stateless is clearly contrary to international law. Hopefully, the Minister will explain how she proposes to get away with that. Shamima Begum had only one nationality; now she has none. The same applied to her children. The Home Office decision, which I contend was clearly against international law, has deprived them all of their citizenship. Citizenship entails obligations as well as rights. The basic obligations include not breaking the law of the land. If Shamima Begum and others in similar circumstances have broken the law, they should be allowed to return, but they should be investigated, interrogated and, if appropriate, prosecuted. They are the responsibility of the British Government. We are talking about British citizens.”
“I remind Ministers that they have lost twice in court when attempting to strip British citizens of Bangladeshi descent of their nationality. As Ministers like to remind us, the duty of the Government is to ensure the safety and security of all our citizens. I contend that it is not for Ministers to pick and choose who enjoys those rights; it is a matter of law. One is almost obliged to ask Ministers if they regard it as their duty to uphold the law and to defend British citizens, such as the defenceless baby, Jarrah. Let me remind the House of article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights, which says: “Everyone has the right to a nationality…No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”. Could the legal position be any clearer?”
“He appears to be pretending that Shamima Begum’s case is somehow sub judice and therefore cannot be safely discussed. I put this as kindly as I can: that is nonsense, as everyone knows—the Speaker had to point this out. The Home Secretary had no compunction about naming Shamima Begum directly, for the benefit of 400,000 readers of The Times in an article he wrote on 17 February. That article was headed: “If you run away to join Isis, like Shamima Begum, I will use all my power to stop you coming back”. He clearly had no problem discussing an individual case then. Can Ministers not see that that defence will not do? The House can only speculate what line of defence Ministers will take when the almost inevitable legal challenge to their decision comes, if not in this case then in other cases.”
“However, he seems unable to tell us if he has received any advice from MI5 or MI6, and what they have said about his decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship. He is unable to clarify what other legal advice he may have received. It is not clear what steps, if any, the Home Office took to ensure the safe return of Shamima Begum’s son, Jarrah, who was a British citizen and who was born before the Home Secretary’s decision. That son now lies dead. Shamima Begum has buried three babies in Syrian soil in less than a year. Will the Minister tell us whether there will be coroner’s inquest for Jarrah and whether the Home Office is willing to facilitate contact between Shamima Begum and her legal representatives? When we debated this issue, the Home Secretary repeatedly hid behind the words that he cannot talk about individual cases.”
“She had clearly been groomed in her bedroom by the disgusting agents of ISIS. There has been talk from Members who seemed to imply that she is wholly responsible for her fate; I thought that since the Rotherham child sex abuse cases the House had moved beyond blaming 15-year-olds who had been groomed entirely for their fate. We have recently discussed cases of British people being deprived of their citizenship, including Shamima Begum. We now learn that other British women were made stateless under the previous Home Secretary, but in secret. At least the current Home Secretary has disclosed, with a little prompting, that he has made someone stateless, which is an improvement on his predecessor.”
“I do not think the contention that, because someone’s parents or grandparents migrated from somewhere, they do not take the notion of being a British citizen very seriously, stands up. A lot of this debate revolves around the particular case of Shamima Begum. I have said before in the House—I will repeat it, for the avoidance of doubt—that Shamima Begum made some very bad, very stupid and quite possibly illegal choices. She has also made some terrible statements in the media. I do not, and Labour does not, sympathise with or excuse her views or her actions. What we on the Opposition Front Bench are concerned about is what should be done genuinely to make this country safer. On the question of Shamima Begum, we have to recognise that she was just 15 when she left this country to join ISIS.”
“In the light of the terrorist atrocity in Canterbury, New Zealand, this debate about a petition that quite correctly expresses horror and condemnation of terrorism, whatever its source, is extremely timely. The petition expresses a deep sense of anger about terrorism, but it also poses the very important policy question, “What are we going to do about returning foreign fighters?” Government Members said that British citizenship should not be taken lightly. You do not have to tell the daughter of West Indian migrants that British citizenship is a pearl beyond price. I do not take it lightly, my parents did not take it lightly and I do not believe the parents of some of these foreign fighters take it lightly.”
“Can the Minister provide the House with figures about the number of far-right terrorists we are engaged with, or who are perhaps currently going through the Prevent programme?”
“I apologise to the Minister. I was referring to her earlier remarks about far-right terrorist responsibility for the atrocity in New Zealand. I wanted to understand whether she has figures available for the number of far-right terrorists whom Government agencies are currently engaged with, and who are passing through the Prevent programme. If she does not have the figures to hand I will quite understand, but perhaps she can write and furnish me with those figures.”
“On the question of children, which the Minister addressed a few sentences ago, we have seen that journalists, aid workers and United Nations officials can go in and out of Syrian refugee camps. Why is it so impossible to make arrangements to protect British children?”
“I am well aware that the Government advise people that it is not safe to travel to Syria. However, the Minister will be aware that children, particularly those who may only be a few months old, are not in a position to abide by that advice. I ask her again: would it not be possible, working with NGOs, to get these very young—often weeks or months old—British children out to the nearest British consular presence, which may be on the border with Turkey?”
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on Shamima Begum, the death of her son Jarrah and other cases.”
“Can he assure the House that he will work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to see how best those British children’s rights can be protected? The Home Secretary’s decision in this case has caused widespread concern and alarm. We understand the issue of keeping British people safe, but this was a British baby, who is now dead. No Opposition Member condones— [Interruption.]”
“Does the Home Secretary further accept that, by stripping Shamima of her nationality, he made it impossible for her to fulfil her duties as a mother and bring her baby home to a safe place? Will he confirm that, as he said earlier, as well as taking legal advice, he took advice from the police and security services about the desirability or otherwise of bringing Shamima home? Can he explain why he deemed this 19-year-old, with a baby that was not quite three weeks old, more dangerous to Britain than the hundreds of foreign fighters who have already been allowed to return? We now know that there are other British women in those camps who have been stripped of their nationality by the Home Secretary’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd).”
“He knows that many authorities contend that that was done illegally, because she was not a dual national. Article 15 of the United Nations declaration of human rights states: “Everyone has a right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”. Does the Home Secretary accept that the child was British? Does he further accept that the British legal system does not hold children responsible for the wrongdoing of their parents? Does he also accept that, despite what Ministers have said about the dangers of sending officials into the refugee camp, aid workers, doctors and journalists go backwards and forwards to and from those camps all the time?”
“When she was 15, Shamima Begum made a very bad decision, and it is arguable that much of the tragedy that has engulfed her since then flows from it. It is also the case that she has recently made some reprehensible statements to the media. However, the Home Secretary will know that the Opposition believe that she and her baby should have been allowed to return home. Now we know that that baby is dead. We believed that she should have been allowed to return home because this schoolgirl, born and brought up in Bethnal Green, was Britain’s responsibility. As it happens, that is also the general view of the President of the United States. Above all, bringing the mother and baby home would have given the baby a chance of life. Instead, the Home Secretary, in the face of a media outcry, chose to strip Shamima of her citizenship.”
“This is a very serious matter and it is unfortunate that Members on the Treasury Bench do not seem to take it with the seriousness it deserves. I say to the Home Secretary that no Opposition Member condones what Shamima Begum did—the choices she made and the things she said. But if it was his 19-year-old daughter, however badly she had behaved and however reprehensible or near criminal her choices, would he want her to bury three babies in the course of a year? The Home Secretary of course has a responsibility to protect the British public, but he also has a responsibility to appear just and fair in the eyes of the British public. This decision, which has led, as night follows day, to this less than three-week-old baby dying, does not appear just or fair to the majority of the British public.”
“Does the Minister accept that what frightened communities, families and mothers need is not more hand-wringing, not more summits, not more committees, and not more reviews? They want the Government to put the necessary resources into the youth service, into work with excluded children, into strengthening mental health services for young people and adolescents, and, above all, into the police service. Only then will the public believe that the Government are taking the knife crime epidemic seriously.”
“Our constituents know this from the delays in responding to 999 calls—not just a few hours, but sometimes the next day—and they know when they ring up to say they have seen people selling drugs or other criminality on the street that the police do not have the resources to respond. We need more resources for the police, and we need them now. Yesterday, the Home Secretary met police chiefs from seven forces and others. Since 2010, Tory Governments have cut more than 9,000 officers from those forces alone. Did the Home Secretary apologise to them? Did he offer them extra resources? Is the Minister able to tell us? In 2009, the Home Affairs Committee published a comprehensive appraisal of what needs to be done to fight knife crime. We know about the success of what has been done in Glasgow.”
“Does she agree with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, who says there is a clear correlation between the fall in police numbers and the rise in violent crime, including knife crime, or does she agree with her Prime Minister, who denies any such correlation? Does she agree with the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who said of the Prime Minister: “I don’t think she listens, quite frankly, to what she’s being told”? Does the Minister accept that many people will find the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s suggestion that the police only have to move resources from other areas to fight knife crime, monstrous and an insult to grieving families? The police are under pressure in nearly every area.”
“We have had several days of newspaper headlines on knife crime, but does the Minister accept that for families and communities up and down the country this is not just a few days of newspaper stories; this is their lives? It is every mother’s worst nightmare: they say goodbye to their son in the morning and the next call they get is from the emergency services telling them their child is the victim of violent crime. On police numbers, does the Minister accept that it is a question not just of police officers on patrol, but of community policing, safer school partnerships and police officers working with our diverse communities?”
“I congratulate the Public Accounts Committee on this important report. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important sentences in the report is the one that says that “while the Department has reviewed 11,800 Caribbean cases, around 160,000 non-Caribbean Commonwealth cases remain unreviewed”? What does she advise the Government to do? These people cannot simply be ignored.”
“Ministers will remember that last Monday the Home Secretary said: “We must, of course, observe international law, and we cannot strip someone of their British citizenship if doing so would leave them stateless. Individuals who manage to return will be questioned, investigated and, potentially, prosecuted.” —[ Official Report , 18 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 1193.] Ministers will be aware that the Opposition think that the latter would have been the correct course of action. By Wednesday, however, the Home Secretary had stripped Shamima Begum of her citizenship rights. Can he share with the House whether he contacted the Bangladeshi high commissioner or the Bangladeshi Government before taking this decision?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that sometimes people talk about the use of the phrase “institutional racism” as if people are saying every single person in the institution in question is a racist, whereas that phrase refers to the workings of institutions that turn out to the disadvantage of black people and others?”
“If it has not been implemented in the way that I would have liked, that is no criticism of Judge Macpherson. It shows that sometimes an establishment figure leading an inquiry can have rather good results. The extraordinary thing is that the Labour Government gave Doreen her inquiry, and it was an important and well thought-out inquiry. The sad thing has been the lack of progress since the Macpherson inquiry. Chief Constable Jon Boutcher is the lead on race and religion for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and he has said: “My challenge to policing is that the pace of change is too slow, since Macpherson. In my view it could have been faster. I think it’s about commitment at a senior leadership level. I don’t accept that everything has been done...There have been the words, but not the actions.”
“I hope he will not mind my saying that he was a little sceptical about the Stephen Lawrence case, because the Met police at the time were really sceptical. I went into that meeting with my colleagues and Doreen, and she turned Jack Straw around with her passion, her commitment to justice for her son and her fixity of purpose. Jack Straw started that meeting a little sceptical and he came out committed to a public inquiry. No sooner had Labour been elected in 1997 than he delivered on his promise. He gave Doreen her inquiry. When the inquiry was set up, it was to be led by Judge Macpherson, and some of us asked, “Who is this establishment figure? What kind of report are we going to get?” In fact, it was an amazing report that transfigured the debate.”
“For several years, Doreen and Neville Lawrence campaigned on the issues, and it was hard going, because there was little interest. They went to court, and they lost. They organised demonstrations and they lobbied their local MPs. They never gave up. The thing I remember most vividly about the aftermath of the death of Stephen Lawrence is taking Doreen to see my colleague Jack Straw, then Member for Blackburn and shadow Home Secretary. It was the last thing that Doreen could think of to do. We went with other Members of colour, including the then Members for Tottenham and for Brent, South. I remember talking to Jack Straw before the meeting, and he was actually more interested in issues of diversity than was common at the time.”
“I said: “The black men and women who came to this country in the 1950s and 1960s went through difficult times and had to work hard to keep themselves and their families together. They always believed…that, for their children, times would be better…Therefore, the recent spate of killings of” young black people “and the killing of Stephen Lawrence in particular is distinctly cruel. Black” young people are being killed “in a way that makes it look as if society is throwing a community’s hopes back in its face.” —[ Official Report , 21 May 1993; Vol. 225, c. 541.] That was the feeling in the black community at the time. It did not get coverage in the national papers until the Daily Mail took it up, and it was not an issue in this House, but people felt very strongly about it.”
“In 1992, a 16-year-old, Rohit Duggal, was also killed as a consequence of a racist attack. In the months after Stephen’s death, 19 people were injured in a brawl outside the local BNP headquarters. At that point, Stephen Lawrence’s death made no impact in the wider society. I give the Daily Mail genuine credit, because it took Paul Dacre’s extraordinary front page to make it a subject that the wider society took up. In the black community, however, there was tremendous feeling about it from the beginning, because we knew it was part of a series of deaths of young black men. Stephen Lawrence died in 1993, and later that year I was the first person in the House of Commons to make a speech about his death.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) on securing this very important debate. There is no question but that the Macpherson inquiry changed the way that the state spoke about race. At 350 pages, with 88 witnesses and 100,000 pages of evidence, it was a game-changing report, but it was called “The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry”, and it is the death of Stephen Lawrence that I turn to now. People forget—or perhaps they were not in the House then—that the death of Stephen Lawrence was one of a series of deaths of young black men in south-east London at that time. This was partly related—some of us think—to the fact that the British National party had its headquarters in Bexley. In 1991, Rolan Adams was stabbed to death by 12 thugs. Only one of them was ever convicted.”
“The Macpherson inquiry threw down a gauntlet to society about race. We must pick up that gauntlet, and fulfil the promise of that important inquiry.”
“Friends have spoken about the importance of recruiting more policemen of colour, the issue being that members of police forces should look like the communities that they serve. There is also the long-standing issue of the promotion possibilities for black policemen. Macpherson was probably one of the most important events in my lifetime in the context of the debate about race. It has changed the way in which we talk about race, particularly in relation to policing. It is a tribute to Doreen Lawrence for her tenacity, her courage and her persistence that we ever had a Macpherson inquiry. However, there is more to do. We cannot be complacent. Because race is at the heart of many of the issues involved in policing and community safety, we need to look again at those recommendations and proceed with their implementation.”
“Friends have identified a number of issues that arise from any consideration of Macpherson, such as the use of the gangs matrix, in which young black men are disproportionately racially profiled, and the use of stop and search. Labour Members believe in evidence-based stop and search, but its random use has done more to exacerbate bad relationships between the police and the community than anything else. We continue to insist that evidence-based stop and search is one thing, but random stop and search is another. It is all too easy for politicians so say, in the face of a crime wave, “Let us have more stop and search”, but we must insist on its being evidence-based. My hon.”
“Phrases such as “institutional racism” can be used, and people understand what they mean. The phrase “institutional racism” does not imply that every single individual in an individual in an institution is racist; it means that there are ways in which a certain institution works. However, there has not been enough progress. People forget that after Macpherson, police chiefs from the 43 forces in England and Wales agreed on a Government target: there must be the same proportion of black officers in their ranks as in the community that they served. They were given a decade in which to achieve that, but none of them ever did so. My hon.”
“I agree that there is more work to be done. Chief Constable Jon Boutcher also said that race was continually at the heart of the biggest issues facing policing. He spoke about the disproportional over-targeting of black people for stop-and-search purposes which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), about knife crime, about female genital mutilation, about honour-based violence, about modern slavery and about terrorism. He said: “Race is at the core of so much, we should always have race as a priority regarding representation and community confidence. Race has not continued to be the priority that it should have over the last 25 years.” That was said by a chief constable, not by some dangerous black radical. There has been progress, and the narrative is different now.”
“On the particular issue of Shamima Begum, there is no question but that she has said some very reprehensible things in the media, particularly about the Manchester bombings. However, the Home Secretary knows that the Home Office lost two cases where it attempted to strip people of their nationality on the basis of Bangladeshi nationality by descent, so why is he going forward with the same strategy now? Let me remind the Home Secretary of article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights: “(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”. Can the Home Secretary explain how his actions are not in breach of the articles of the declaration?”
“On the general question of returning foreign fighters and ISIS supporters, the President of the United States said: “The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial.” Does the Home Secretary accept that what the security services have been calling for is a very specialised programme of questioning, interrogation, de-radicalisation and quite possibly putting these people on trial, fashioned for this group of foreign fighters and their supporters? What is not helpful is to strip them of their nationality, which on the face of what he has said appears to be on a wholly arbitrary basis.”
“When she was Home Secretary, the current Prime Minister came to the realisation that random stop-and-search does not work, because that is what the Home Office’s own research reveals. The Opposition can only speculate on how long it will take the current Home Secretary to come to that understanding. There were also concerns about knife crime prevention orders. We have to contemplate that, on the grounds purely of suspicion, people as young as 12 will be targeted, put on a curfew and prevented from accessing the internet. There are already laws against the carrying of knives, threatening to use them and actually using them, but there is a problem with enforcing those laws. That issue relates to police numbers and person power, and I will return to that point.”
“The strategy has many theoretical elements that the Opposition would support, but we contend whether the money made available for it actually offsets all the cuts in local government funding that have contributed to the crime wave we now see. I will return to that subject. Ministers’ responses to violent crime have included calling for more stop-and-search, knife crime prevention orders and asking the internet companies to stop videos that glorify violence. All those ideas have their merits, but I stress to the House that random, non-evidence-based stop-and-search has never worked. Properly targeted stop-and-search can play its part in reducing crime but, in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio got rid of what they call “stop and frisk” altogether and crime went down.”
“Behind the statistics are a thousand personal tragedies: the victims of violence; the people who have been robbed or attacked on the street; the innocent young men and women caught up in the crossfire in a club or on the street where they live; the vulnerable young people caught up in the drugs trade, and possibly the county lines phenomenon; the mothers who lie awake most nights until their son or daughter returns home; the parents who dread the phone call from the police or the hospital to tell them that a family member has come to harm; and the young men who will never come home again. As the Home Secretary reminds us, almost a year ago his predecessor launched the new Home Office serious violence strategy.”
“That may be a factor for some types of crime, but the ONS says: “We have also seen increases in some types of ‘lower-volume, high-harm’ violence including offences involving knives or sharp instruments.” To look at the issue of violent crime from another perspective, there has been a 15% increase in the number of hospital admissions in England for assaults involving a sharp instrument. That is not better police recording; it is our A&E units across the country being swamped by the effects of serious violence. In fact, a report published by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in 2014 found that violent offences had actually been substantially under-recorded by 33% nationally. We are in the middle of a crisis.”
“The latest data from the Office for National Statistics reveal that violent crime soared 19% to 1.5 million offences in the year to last September. Consider that for a moment: it equates to an average of more than 4,000 offences a day. The ONS also reports that it includes a 14% rise in homicides and an 8% rise in knife crime, which equates to 110 knife offences daily. Murder and manslaughter are at their highest levels for more than a decade. The Home Secretary sometimes tries to hide behind the fact that the rising figures are the result of better reporting and recording.”
“Few aspects of crime frighten our constituents more than violent crime. The sad truth is that, under this Government, violent crime continues to spiral. I begin by declaring a personal interest and concern. I have been an MP in the heart of the east end for 30 years. I am immensely proud of being a Hackney MP. It is an amazing community, and we lead the way in tech, fashion, fine art, music and all types of culture, but a person cannot live and work in Hackney for the number of years I have and not be aware of the harsh reality of violent crime. For my constituents and me, violent crime is not just a newspaper story but the cause of tragic incidents that haunt friends and neighbours and regularly scar our community. Let me remind the House of the parameters of the violent crime wave we face.”
“The violent crime epidemic that we face is at least partly to do with austerity, the policies of this Government and the funding of the police. The Opposition are committed, when the time comes, to taking serious, co-ordinated action to start to push back on this rise in toxic and frightening violent crime.”
“Rounding up whole drug gangs, as the police sometimes do, often means simply opening up turf wars as neighbouring gangs move into the vacant territory. Under this Government, the police cannot even make the arrests that they should be making, and arrest and conviction rates have plummeted. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, all our constituents engage with the question of violent crime with fear and concern. It is one thing to pay lip service to the causes of crime, including violent crime, as the Home Secretary did in his remarks, but the Opposition say that the rise in violent crime since 2010 is connected to the reluctance to give the police the funding they need to fight all types of crime.”
“A one-time director general of the Prison Service who went on to head Barnardo’s, Martin Narey, said that on the day when a child is expelled from school, we might as well give them a date and time to turn up at prison. Ministers have to pay more attention to this pipeline from educational failure—school failure—to the world of crime. The other issues that help to promote criminality are the hopeless job prospects for many of our young people, the collapse of the youth service in many areas of the country and the crisis in mental health care. When we ask senior police officers, as I am sure the Home Secretary has done, they tell us, “You can’t arrest your way out of this”, and of course they are right.”
“Every MP in this debate, on either side of the House, will know of the negative consequences that the fall in police numbers has had in their area: the lower police presence; the decimation of community policing; tardiness in responding to 999 calls, with them sometimes not getting replied to until the next day; and the resultant fall in public confidence. The Home Secretary talks about increasing investment, but the cuts across almost every other area of public spending have helped to fuel the rise in crime, including the rise in violent crime. Those cuts, particularly as they fall on local authorities, have exacerbated the causes of crime. They include the crisis in housing, growing inequality, and the crisis in our schools, including school exclusions. Too many pupil referral units are just academies for crime.”