Featherstone on youth crime

1.58.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sat 3rd May 2008

' . . Like all MPs, I dread getting a phone call from the police; one knows that it will be bad news and that there will have been an incident . .'

Lynne Featherstone (Youth and Equality Spokesperson, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat): I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) on securing such an important debate. So far, I have not disagreed with anything that has been said-there is a lot of sense in this room. Like all MPs, I dread getting a phone call from the police; one knows that it will be bad news and that there will have been an incident. In December 2006, I received a call-not one of the worst that I have received-about 60 to 80 youths rampaging up Lordship lane, which resulted in a number of stabbings. Mercifully, none of the stabbings was serious in the sense that none was fatal, but the fact that that is happening must be of concern to hon. Members from all parties. Such violence has spread way beyond the areas where one would traditionally expect there to be trouble; the problem goes right across my constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green, from the wealthy, leafy side to wards with some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country. The fear is the same across all of those areas and some of the incidents are the same, too.

As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that our approach should be the three Ps: prevent, protect and punish. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) that education should be at the highest end of the spectrum of issues. Some good initiatives are taking place. For example, during anti-crime week, I visited Woodside high school, which is a big secondary that faces many challenges. Everyone worked together: the police, the young people, and a theatre group-the Comedy Store, which did a role model play. Once young people talk openly, it becomes clear that they are petrified. The event at Woodside was a bit difficult at first and the first half hour went a bit slowly because having police in the room is not necessarily the natural environment for people to express openly who is carrying and who is not. Nevertheless, as the morning progressed, the fears came out and, above all, young people said, "Well, I carry because I'm scared not to. If I knew that there were not knives on the streets, I would not need to carry a knife." I think that that set the task that we faced.

Other hon. Members have also mentioned that it is helpful to communicate about the issue through drama, and in the case I mentioned that was done through the Comedy Store. Police and politicians talking to people is good and engaging, but the role model play made it clear-I watched the performance and thought it was fantastic-that if someone carries a knife, there are two outcomes. The first outcome is that the person carrying a knife may end up injured or dead, and as the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, that could be a result of their own knife. The second outcome is that they will end up with a custodial sentence, which will ruin their life just as surely as anything else. The role model play was a good way of getting that message across.

Having a police officer in each school can be a good measure-we certainly have experience of that in Haringey-but it can depend on the police officer and how far they engage with the young people. At Woodside, the police did a lot of good work. I am concerned, and perhaps the Minister will address this, that the Government are not doing enough in terms of funding. The Connected fund supports community-based work to tackle gun, gang and knife crime and has been providing grants. In the Home Office's most recent report the fund is feted as a flagship of Government effort to educate, engage, and dissuade young people from carrying knives. However, the last round of grant application finished in May 2007 and I do not know what further work is being done or what is happening in relation to that. Will the Minister elaborate on the current state of the fund and say when and if the next round of grants will come forward?

As hon. Members have said, prevention is definitely about investing in youth services. In Haringey, our youth service has been decimated, and those involved have almost an impossible task. Yet it is crucial to get into the communities and work with the young people who need that kind of attention. In autumn 2007, a MORI survey on youth crime commissioned by the Youth Justice Board showed that 43 per cent. of young people think that their peers commit crime because of boredom. We should listen to young people and to do that we need to invest in them. The issue is not just about banning violent computer games or censorship; it is about giving people pathways, aspiration, hope, and care and attention. Banning things often makes them more glamorous.

We need modern heroes who are both cool and positive for young people to aspire to-the role models who go around the schools have not always been that. Sports facilities and somewhere for young people to hang out are also important, as hon. Members have said. However, that does mean the yesteryear thing of a church hall with a table tennis table, which has limited attraction.

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North, Labour): Probably zero attraction.

Lynne Featherstone (Youth and Equality Spokesperson, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat): Or, as the hon. Gentleman said, zero attraction. Young people need somewhere to hang out; in fact, a commercial enterprise has opened a non-alcoholic pub that is incredibly successful. I do not know where that is, so if anyone knows, I would appreciate it if they could tell me. When I visit schools, the sixth formers all say that they want somewhere to hang out so they can be warm. They do not particularly like being out on the street when it is freezing, and there are ideas to deal with that that could be utilised, such as having non-alcoholic pubs.

Sports facilities are important, but unfortunately even in Haringey, £32,000 to develop youth sport will not go a very long way. We need to devote the funding to the need. In terms of prevention, most of all, young people need someone who cares about them when they come home, and when they are at school. Young people also need someone who cares about their achievements and what they are doing and someone who knows when they are getting into trouble. Ideally, of course, that should be a parent, but it can be any adult. Quite often the sports coaches at New River sports centre take on youngsters and encourage them to become coaches. They take an interest in an individual young person and that makes the young person want to do well and to achieve. Such schemes turn lives around and many of the volunteer coaches from that sports centre to go on to have careers. Such things are really important.

As has been said, protection relates to the issue of fear. When I met Haringey youth council and youth parliament, young people said that fear of crime is their number one issue and that they are afraid because they are vulnerable to others carrying knives. Young people also think that carrying a knife gives them status. As the hon. Member for Islington, North said, if someone comes from a deprived area they might not have much, but with a knife they feel like a big guy and can say to themselves, "If I can show that I'm a man, who's going to diss me now?" We have to show that that is not the case. Some kids do not even realise that plunging a knife into someone's leg can be fatal; they do not necessarily know that there is an artery there that can kill someone because they think the leg area is not the same as the chest.

On action to get knives off the street, yes, random arches are good at stations, but I worry that they are of limited use in schools where there is a real problem because the knives would not be taken into school. But, random use outside nightclubs is good. Intelligent stop and search should be used because at the moment it does not target carrying and barely picks up on knives. As the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, we need information from the community. The community knows who carries a knife and if it trusts, it will share that information. The police can then stop the relevant person. If we can remove knives from the streets, kids will not feel the need to carry them, and if that confidence is there, the intelligence will be forthcoming. The knife amnesties that bring in 90,000 knives are great, but there is not a corresponding drop in knife crime. We need to think about how those things are working.

Will the Minister give the prosecution rate for young people carrying knives? In the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 I argued for longer sentences-the third of the three-piece punishments-and we have to send out a message on that. However, I have been unable to obtain the figures on how many young people who carry knives are prosecuted and what sentences they receive. More to the point, just arresting people, particularly young people, and putting them in prison will not help to change behaviour, and changing behaviour must be the goal of any punishment, penal system or messages that we send. We are here to help young people on to good pathways and into good lives, not to harm them permanently. We owe it to our young people to ensure that we keep the focus on all those strategies.