Mr David Lammy
MP for Tottenham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I am delighted to welcome the shadow Housing Secretary to the Dispatch Box. He, of course, could have been doing that job every week if he were better with numbers.”
“The right hon. Gentleman has not proposed what the Conservatives would do if they were in office. They released 10,000 under four different schemes, with no impact assessment when they released them, no victim contact when they released them, and no warning. They did it on the sly.”
“This is a very serious issue and the right hon. Gentleman is experienced in this House. He knows that while he was Home Secretary, the Conservative Government had an early release scheme that let out 10,000 offenders—10,000. They had six schemes within a year.”
“I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is attending the NATO summit. Working with our allies, we are strengthening Europe’s role in the alliance, which remains the cornerstone of our national security.”
“The right hon. Gentleman insists on proving that he cannot count. We lost 16,000 police officers when the Conservatives were in power. The British people have not forgotten what they did to our country. After two years of this Labour Government, I will compare our record with theirs every day of the week.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have the honour to say that His Majesty the King has accepted our advice to grant Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, a conditional pardon. [Hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 3,387 lines we hold for Mr David Lammy, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 68.
“I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that everyone inciting violence against Jewish communities in our country must face the full force of the law. I know he will recognise that I represent the Stamford Hill area of London, with its significant Orthodox Jewish community, and I am grateful that he has raised this. Can I just remind him that the CPS updated its guidance on hate crimes on 5 May, to ensure that people face the law as they should?”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot allow the rich and powerful to use their resources to stop proper investigation, and I will be bringing forward legislation as soon as time allows.”
“There is nothing more tragic than seeing young people, often from deprived backgrounds, preyed on by adults to run drugs and all sorts of contraband across the country. We will be bringing that offence forward as soon as possible.”
“The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government inherited a justice system in crisis, with a record and rising caseload. He also knows that the last Government closed courts right across the country. We are legislating for structural reform. We are investing £2.78 billion to bring down the backlog. We will continue to look closely at the needs in Kendal, but he recognises that it will take some time to address what we inherited.”
“Magistrates play a hugely important role. I was sad that they were cut back under the previous Government. There used to be about 29,000. The hon. Gentleman will see the recruitment campaign right across the country. We need a new generation of magistrates, and I want them to come from all backgrounds.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her campaign and work in this area. It is important that prisoners and those on probation are re-educated about codes of conduct, and I am happy for her to arrange a meeting with the Prisons Minister.”
“We have announced additional funding of up to £34 million a year for criminal legal aid advocates, and an additional £92 million beyond that for criminal legal aid solicitors. The hon. Lady has mentioned the important issue of legal aid in relation to mental health cases, which we will look closely at in the next funding period.”
“I recognise the real issues that exist for IPP prisoners—we have discussed those issues at length, and will continue to do so. The Prisons Minister has done a lot of work in this area, engaging with all of those who raise these issues on an almost weekly basis, including in another place. Of course, we want to do more and see those prisoners who are not going to cause public harm released.”
“I warned about this disproportionality when David Cameron asked me to do the Lammy review, nearly a decade ago, and the fact it persists today should shame us all. These reforms will begin to address that, building a system that is fairer and more consistent. It is not a choice between punishment and rehabilitation; it is about what works: protecting the public, cutting reoffending, and stopping vulnerable children—so often victims themselves—becoming tomorrow’s dangerous adult offenders. This Government will do whatever it takes to give more children the chance of a better future, and to keep the British public safe. I commend this statement to the House.”
“I have been clear that custody will, where appropriate, be necessary for public safety. However, we will take further action to improve safety and education across the youth estate, while setting a clear long-term direction of travel away from large, outdated institutions and towards smaller settings that can better rehabilitate children. The White Paper is also about fairness. Not all children in our justice system are equal. Those in care are still far more likely to be drawn into the system. Black children remain vastly over-represented—22% of the youth custodial population, compared with 6% of 10 to 17-year-olds overall. Black children are also over-represented among victims, being around six times more likely to be victims of homicide.”
“We will carefully consider the age of criminal responsibility in this country, which currently sits at just 10 years old, to ensure that it still reflects a modern understanding of childhood, vulnerability and development. We will also strengthen local youth justice services so that they are better equipped to meet the needs of today’s children. We will soon set out detailed proposals for a new approach to youth justice service oversight, and funding arrangements so that children receive consistently high-quality support wherever they live. That includes reforming the Youth Justice Board, sharpening its focus on continuous improvement of local services and transferring some of its key functions to the Ministry of Justice, so that Ministers are fully accountable for how the system performs.”
“So we are setting an ambition to cut the number of children remanded in custody by 25% over this Parliament, alongside an intention to reduce the use of short custodial sentences, which so often are ineffective, with more than two thirds of children going on to reoffend. Instead, we will invest £5 million in intensive community placements and stronger bail support, protecting the public while giving children a genuine chance to change course. We will also reform the childhood criminal records regime, because mistakes made at 13 should not become a life sentence of closed doors and lost chances, not least where this prevents young people from getting a job, which is a crucial factor in helping offenders turn their lives around.”
“Diversion must be firm, fair and effective. We will fundamentally reform the youth out-of-court resolution framework, to improve consistency and public confidence so that children receive interventions that genuinely address their behaviour and cut crime. We will also pilot problem-solving youth intervention courts, laser-focused on rehabilitation and prevention. They bring together judges, youth workers and specialist support to tackle the root causes of offending, whether mental ill health, school absence, addiction or exploitation, while still demanding accountability from young offenders. Custody will always be necessary for the most dangerous offences, but for many children even a short spell inside can deepen their problems, exposing them to more violence and criminal influence.”
“We will also strengthen and expand the use of parenting orders, which can compel parents to address their child’s behaviour, including attending counselling or guidance sessions. If they do not act, they will face penalties. We will deliver on our manifesto commitment to introduce an offence of child criminal exploitation, building on the work carried out by others, including Baroness May, and placing the focus where it belongs: on the adults who groom, the adults who coerce and the adults who profit from exploiting children. Through new youth diversion orders, we will tackle the increasing number of young people who commit terrorism offences, allowing agencies to intervene before that risk escalates. Where offending does happen, we will ensure that children get the right response at the right time.”
“We should not over-criminalise but, at the same time, avoiding criminalisation must never mean overlooking risk or failing to act. Benign neglect, however well intentioned, is still neglect. Where behaviour causes harm, timely, proportionate and effective intervention is essential to protect the public and to support children to change course. That principle is reflected throughout this White Paper. First, we will intervene earlier, investing an additional £46 million over the next three years in our turnaround programme, which is already showing promising results in diverting children from crime, and by strengthening the join-up with other programmes that support children on the cusp of offending.”
“Too often the system has struggled to keep pace: opportunities to intervene are missed, warning signs go unnoticed and agencies do not consistently share information. This means that children can slip through the cracks between services, which risks escalation, and responsibility between agencies becomes blurred. The lessons emerging from the Southport inquiry, following the tragic murders of three young children by Axel Rudakubana, a violent 17-year-old who was known to authorities, are a terrible reminder of what can happen when systems are not sufficiently co-ordinated and not sufficiently decisive in the face of escalating concerns. We must learn those lessons but also strike the right balance. The system must recognise that they are still developing and that most have huge capacity to change.”
“Some grow up surrounded by violence, addiction and abuse, while others are moved endlessly around children’s homes or foster care placements, never staying in one place long enough to have the stability needed to feel safe, let alone the love and care that would enable them to really thrive. All those factors make them more likely to end up in the justice system. When we fail to intervene early enough, the consequences can be devastating—for those children, of course, but also for victims and entire communities, because around 80% of prolific adult offenders first enter the justice system as children. The risks that children face have also changed. Today’s children are navigating online harms, criminal grooming through social media and exposure to extremist content.”
“This progress is the result of real cross-party consensus, with a modern youth justice system that began under Tony Blair’s Government and was continued, during his time as Prime Minister, by Lord Cameron—he famously said he would “hug a hoodie”—who, with Lord Gove, asked me to carry out the Lammy review. But this success has brought a new challenge. Our youth justice system is now working with significantly fewer young people, but they are significantly more vulnerable and at significantly higher risk. Most begin their journey into crime long before they come to the attention of the police, their lives shaped by instability, by trauma and often by neglect—the kind of childhood that most of us in this House could barely imagine.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the youth justice system in England and Wales. I am today publishing a White Paper, with a once-in-a-generation set of reforms to build a youth justice system that intervenes early, responds more effectively and does more to turn young lives around, so that we can better protect the public. I am very grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), and, before him, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), for all their hard work in getting us to this point. Over the past two decades, the number of children entering the youth justice system and being detained in custody has fallen dramatically.”
“However, we are consulting on youth intervention courts because, just as we have seen in our family drug and alcohol courts, problem-solving approaches —gripping the young person, their parents and those who work with them; looking at the addiction and mental health issues and giving them support; holding the multidisciplinary teams to account—can really make a difference. We stand by that. The hon. Member asked about young people on remand. We want to recruit a new generation of specialist foster carers, because it is much better to have a responsible, loving adult—”
“As he will know, the Bar Council is consulting on this issue, and I look forward to receiving the conclusions of its work. He also asks about foreign national offenders. We are absolutely clear in this consultation that we will look at the 16 and 17-year-olds who arrive in our country from somewhere else and commit a violent crime; if they do so, I am afraid that they will be deported. We are really clear about that. We have driven up deportation in our country. The hon. Gentleman asks whether we are abolishing the youth court and the criminal standard. Of course we are not.”
“] Conservative Members really should listen to this. On their watch, more than 1,000 Sure Start centres closed. Early intervention was demolished on their watch. I said it was a mixed record because there was a fall in the number of first-time entrants into the youth justice system. Figures peaked at around 110,000 back in 2007, but fell to just 7,500 while the Tories were in office in 2023. When they entered government, there were around 2,000 children in youth custody; by the end of their tenure, that had fallen to just over 1,000. Those were great achievements. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does not want to celebrate those achievements, which began under David Cameron and Michael Gove. The hon. Gentleman asks about the age of criminal responsibility.”
“The Tories have a mixed record when it comes to youth justice and keeping young people out of criminality. We should remember that their local authority spending cuts led to a huge fall in council services for young people—about 70% in real terms. While they were in power, £1 billion was lost, leading to the closure of many youth clubs, a reduction in the outreach work that is vital to keeping young people on the right track, and youth workers being completely undermined. All that early intervention work was stopped—an entire generation sacrificed at the altar of austerity. As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) will know—he was at the driving wheel—the Tories also cut 20,000 police officers and 7,000 police community support officers, leading to a collapse in visible neighbourhood policing. On their watch— [ Interruption.”
“Exactly—we used to have them, and the Tories abolished them. We want to bring them back and grow their numbers so that we can support these young people. There are a range of things we can do through this White Paper, and I encourage the hon. Member for West Suffolk to read it in detail. A lot of his predecessors would agree with it. It is good work, and we need to get on with it.”
“We will look at this and do the necessary inquiry, and I know that my hon. Friend’s Committee is doing that work at the moment. He is concerned, quite rightly, about the huge rates of both prolific crime and recidivism. Clearly, the system is not working. We have this group of young people present in the system, and sometimes over two thirds of them go on to reoffend. We can do better, and we must do better. We have put rehabilitation at the heart of this youth justice White Paper.”
“It is important that the Department, working with our colleagues in the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, bring some of these powers back to the centre so that we can get coherence across the country and end that postcode lottery.”
“She is right, and we are looking in totality at the way in which parenting orders have worked. There must be something going wrong if the number of parenting orders issued has fallen over the last decade from more than 1,000 to just 33 last year. We have to look at it in the round and ensure that judges have the right tools to support parents and guardians over this next period. The hon. Lady raises the reforms we are making to the Youth Justice Board. It is still the case, if we look across the country, that there is a postcode lottery. We have to eliminate that postcode lottery, which also exists because of online harms, because of grooming, because of mental health and because of neurodiversity. I was in Feltham recently and I saw the good work that it is doing with young people who are neurodiverse.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the manner in which she made her remarks. She understands that we have seen this revolving door, where two thirds of children and young people released from custody go on to reoffend, and many of those young people are extremely vulnerable. We have to do something about it. I thank her for mentioning the cohort of young people —way too many—who are within the care system. I am very grateful that the Minister responsible for children in care, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), is on the Front Bench today alongside me. He takes a huge interest in the work that our Departments do together to deal with this area. The hon. Lady mentioned young people who are adopted. She knows that I am a parent of an adopted child, and I take these issues extremely seriously.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentoring turnaround, which is an important scheme that began under the last Government and has continued under us. It is making a big difference by diverting these young people. I will look closely at its use in her constituency, but we are absolutely clear that it is about not just diverting them but ensuring that we are diverting them to quality. We can see from the recidivism rate of 7% that turnaround is an exceptional programme.”
“I thank him for mentioning special advocacy and I assure him that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley, is looking closely at this and chairing a group to look at the issues.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his expertise in this area. He is right to mention the role that the education system plays, and not just for those in custody. There is more to do in respect of education for young people in custody. Too many of them spent time in their cells during the pandemic, and not outside their cells getting skills. We are looking at reforming referral orders and, whereas we previously had just volunteer panels keeping up to date with these young people in communities, we are looking a bit closer at the role of the judge and professionals in those referrals to ensure that education is taking place and that we have a more multidisciplinary approach in respect of the outcomes for those young people.”
“I will look specifically at my hon. Friend’s constituency. It should be the case that turnaround and diversion work can make a difference, and I hope it is making a difference in his patch. I met the previous Health Secretary to discuss these issues, and I look forward to taking them up with the new Health Secretary in the coming days.”
“I say very gently to the hon. Gentleman that we can do both. We can improve education in our youth custody system—I entirely accept that there is more to do, particularly coming out of covid and particularly because of chronic under-investment by his party—but I encourage him to think a bit harder about the remand population. There is, of course, tremendous churn among the 400 young people who are currently in custody, and therefore we are not talking about a sliver of 25%, adding up to 135. That is not the case. It is significantly more than that, because over the course of a year, it gets into the thousands of young people. [ Interruption. ] He shakes his head, but that is basic maths.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and of course I know his city of Peterborough very well. Peterborough has a vibrant third sector, and we have to get it involved in offering opportunities to young people in the community. There is no doubt that there are lots of skills and training opportunities in Peterborough and the whole of East Anglia, and we want young people to take them up.”
“I recognise why the hon. Gentleman has raised the extremely rare circumstance in which we would expect a judge to remand a parent in custody, but I think he will agree that the judge’s effectively having only a fine does need reform. That is why we have seen the number of parenting orders come down. It is important that we are there to support and encourage parents. I was hugely shocked when I sat recently in Highbury magistrates court, with a lot of young people facing quite serious offences, and there was no parent in sight.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for championing these issues. I hope that she sees an indication of what she seeks from the fact that two Ministers are working hand in hand and sitting on the interministerial group to direct this activity. There is more to do on education in the youth custody context and more to do on neurodiversity and its prevalence among this cohort of young people. We have to extend that work into communities and join up better with local child and adolescent mental health services as well.”
“We need to support parents to get this right, and an intensive supervision court can make a real difference and put a judge right at the centre of that ring.”
“The right hon. Member raises a very serious issue, and it lies at the heart of what we are discussing, because we are seeing young people, particularly this prolific cohort, becoming addicted—often addicted online and often groomed—and this is where the knives and, sadly, the terrorism come in. This is not a stand-alone policy; the work of Prevent, the police and social services matters. Here we have to do better to join up that work, and that is the signal we got following the Fulford inquiry into what happened in Southport. This is an attempt to move directly in that direction, recognising that we are seeing that addictive behaviour in a cohort of young people, and that they are often neurodiverse.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend not just for championing these issues from the Back Benches, but for the tremendous work she did while she was Children’s Minister. She will be pleased to hear that I met Penelope Gibbs just last week to discuss these very issues, and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to look at what more we can do. This is an important consultation. A third of people on jobseeker’s allowance have an offence on their record. We have to do something to ensure that these things do not follow young people for the rest of their lives.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, and she knows from her experience how vital this is. It goes back to the point that I was making about the postcode lottery that we see across the country. We must even up standards and ensure a universal element to this, so that it is not just a pick and mix from local authority to local authority. That is why I am bringing powers back to the centre from the Youth Justice Board, as well as empowering it to drive change and innovation in local communities. That is why we must continue with that £46 million funding for Turnaround over the next three years.”
“The right hon. Gentleman and I have been friends for many years. I know that, like me, he has a deep Christian faith; one heard the power of redemption in his voice. I have long believed that the phrase “looked after” is one of the biggest oxymorons in the English language. Those kids are not sufficiently looked after, which is why I am so grateful that the Under-Secretary of State for Education is sitting beside me and doing such considerable work to turn this system around.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and he knows from his long experience that the role local government plays, alongside mental health services and education, is vital, and we must do much better to join this up. Whenever something goes badly wrong, it is usually because services have not been sufficiently joined up. That is why the new intensive supervision course in this area can make a real difference for young people.”
“This is one of the few occasions—the first ever, I think—when I have agreed with the hon. Lady, specifically about the context for these young people. She brings tremendous experience to the Chamber as a magistrate working in this area, and we can agree about children in care, the adult grooming that we are seeing and parents often not being present in the criminal justice system—we have to do more to support them. She will find a lot in the White Paper that perhaps Reform can adopt as its policy for the next election.”
“I know that my hon. Friend has a tremendous track record in championing issues of disproportionality in this House and beyond this place, and we are grateful for all the work that she does in that area. She is absolutely right that in this White Paper we are getting up to date and gripping the online harms facing our most vulnerable young people, who, in a care context, are living without sufficient parenting and are often groomed into terrorism and vile hate. We must do something about that. There are adults who we can gather together to make a difference in the lives of those young people.”
“Behind the hon. Gentleman’s question is a serious issue. The evidence suggests that short custodial sentences have poor outcomes, with recidivism of almost two thirds, whereas good community support has far better outcomes, with recidivism down by about a third. This is not about just leaving these young people to their own devices in the community. With tagging, specialist foster care and secure accommodation in communities, one can make a real difference and ensure that young people are monitored, which sometimes does not happen in big institutions.”
“I should call to mind not just the work of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, but the youth guarantee introduced by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and all her work to ensure that young people have opportunities wherever they live in the country. Turnaround is making a difference in bringing those services together. We are remodelling the Youth Justice Board, bringing more back to the centre so that we can ensure consistency across the country. At this time, expertise in these areas, particularly in online harm, does not always exist in communities, so we need to do better.”
“I am pleased that under the new Government, we have gripped the pupil referral unit scandal that was happening up and down the country. Too many young people were not even attending the pupil referral unit; they were effectively on the streets. When they did attend the pupil referral unit, they were not really being supported either therapeutically or educationally. That lottery is coming to an end under this Government. There is absolutely a pipeline into crime, and we have to be joined up for not just those young people in custody in the criminal justice system, but those young people who are often in a pipeline into custody if the pupil referral unit is not working as successfully as it should.”
“At this point, it is important to mention the county lines programme, which sits with the Home Office. We in the Ministry of Justice work very closely with it, and it is making a difference. It is an absolute scandal that young people—as young as 10 or 11—have been travelling up and down the country ferrying drugs. No one knew where they were or what school they went to, and they had no support, but we are bringing that to an end. For the first time in a long time, we are seeing knife crime falling, and the number of young people falling into county lines is coming down.”
“I assure the hon. Gentleman that that will not be the case. The 412 young people in custody at the moment are there for public protection; they have to be there. Many of those young people are there because of very violent crimes, and some of them are serving very long sentences. Public protection must always come first, but this White Paper recognises the modern world—the world that we live in. It also recognises the vulnerability of the particular cohort we are talking about, which has changed vastly from 20 years ago. There is more that we can do with agencies to support these young people, particularly in communities, so that they are not criminalised, mixing and going on to the adult prison, and to reduce the overall numbers.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for the work he does in Harlow. He knows that I know Harlow very well, because it happens to be the second home of Spurs supporters in the country. He will be pleased that just two weeks ago, I was sat discussing these issues with the Secretary of State for Education and my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington on the interministerial board that we have, which looks particularly at children in care and their outcomes, what more we can do, what more we can join up and how we can continue to make a difference for them. Over the five years that we have in this term in government, and it is five years—there has been some speculation in recent days that it might be less—I am determined that we are going to make a difference for looked-after children.”