Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

I thank all Opposition Members and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) for an excellent debate. It would be easy in such debates for hon. Members on both sides of the House to grandstand, to try to grab headlines and to make the easy speech. However, as Opposition Members and my right hon. Friend have said, this issue cannot be solved by headline-grabbing or populist measures, but requires a menu of different things to be done that includes all the various options available to us. No one can fail to have been moved by the families involved, and the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), my right hon. Friend and, indeed, all hon. Members have met some of them and seen the consequences of what we are talking about: real communities, real families and real young people, whose lives have been devastated by this sort of violent crime. If I could do one thing at the Dispatch Box that meant that no one would be shot or stabbed and that there would be no violence at all on our streets, I would do it: I would pass that measure or seek to ensure that the House passed it tomorrow. Indeed, if any hon. Member had a magic wand that could immediately bring an end to all that violence, he or she would surely wave it. In fact, the debate has demonstrated that the solution and the progress that must be made will come about through steady actions, and the Government have taken a number of them. I want to mention a few of those actions before I address some of the comments made by Members. The Government have recognised that this is not only a matter of enforcing and strengthening the law; there are other solutions, although, of course, enforcing the law has an important part to play. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) mentioned the mandatory minimum five-year sentence, about which there are concerns, although the length of sentence for the possession of firearms has increased from 12.1 months in 2004 to 47.3 months. Again, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the need for the supply of guns to be prioritised, and Customs has agreed to make tackling the supply of guns a priority for the first time. Customs will therefore generate fresh intelligence on gun supply and prioritise suspected trafficking cases—another step forward that we have taken. Prevention is also vital. Every hon. Member who spoke in the debate not only talked about the enforcement of the law and the tough measures that need to be taken, but pointed out that prevention is crucial and that the work that takes places in communities is essential. Every Member will have been to different communities and seen the work of community groups. Surely, if we have to do one thing, it is to empower community organisations and groups in the affected areas to take the required action. We are looking at what more we can do to support organisations, such as Boyhood to Manhood, which works particularly well in Southwark to extend positive role models for young people, and Mothers Against Guns and Mothers Against Violence—run by people who have used the horror of what has happened to their own family to try to ensure that it does not happen to others. We are considering what we can do for street pastors—people who, through the power of their faith, go out on the streets to take action against some of the problems that we have seen. Let me share just one experience when I was out with the street pastors in Brixton recently, dealing with problems on the street. I do not know what other hon. Members think, but I imagined that all the street pastors would be 6 ft 6—all built a bit like the England rugby pack. [Interruption.] It is good example, but an unfortunate result. In fact, when an incident arose, the person who went over and dealt with it was a 78-year-old grandmother. The young people she spoke to respected and valued her. If we could only harness such power, we could do more to prevent crime. It is not only about enforcement or tackling the supply of guns, but about prevention and working with communities. As we have heard, it is also about trying to encourage witnesses to come forward, protecting them and giving them confidence. There is no headline solution to the problem; there is only a solution that needs us all to take step-by-step action to cover all aspects of that problem. The hon. Member for Taunton said that we need to address the broad issues, not just those of stop and search. Given the points that I have made, I hope that he will feel that some progress is being made to ensure that there is not a one-club solution—it is not just either/or—but that all those issues taken together will ensure that a broad strategy is implemented that can make a real difference. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, whom I have known for a number of years, for pointing out that, whatever the decisions that we make about stop-and-search powers, we need to recognise both that we can only make progress with caution and that very real problems exist—the disproportionality to which he referred. It is worth repeating, as he did, that black people are six times more likely to be stopped. If we are to be effective and proportionate, we must take account of such statistics and ensure that we do more to inspire confidence among those people that the powers that we may give to our police will not be used disproportionately.