Fighting Crime (Public Engagement)

I am delighted to follow, as I often do, the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), but I am slightly frustrated that he was unable to give us more of the contents of his forthcoming report, which I certainly look forward to reading. He is obviously unaware that there is nothing quite so secret as a speech made in this House, particularly on a Thursday afternoon. Looking at the Press Gallery, I am afraid that there was certainly no risk of his breaking an embargo. Public engagement in fighting crime is absolutely crucial, but unfortunately the problem is rather more deep-seated than that mentioned by the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) and importantly clarified by my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—the issue of have-a-go heroes. I was shocked by the survey evidence about Britain when compared with other major European countries. British residents, for example, are far less likely to challenge antisocial behaviour. In the UK, six out of 10 people said that they would be unlikely to challenge a group of 14-year-olds vandalising a bus shelter—a higher number than in any country surveyed by Laycock in research for the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. In Germany, for example, the position is the reverse: six out of 10 people said that they would challenge the group. We have to realise that policing by consent is a two-way process in which the public have to support the police. The police cannot operate in a void or a vacuum where the public are not prepared to come forward. The public do not have to get involved in the have-a-go hero model but, as the right hon. Member for Leicester, East said, they must report issues to the police, be prepared to give witness statements and go to court, and provide leads and intelligence for the police. It is crucial that we try to rebuild the public's trust—although perhaps it never existed in this country. We have to stop seeing the police as a branch of a supermarket, where we spend our money, get them to do something, delegate all the effort to them and tell them to get on with it because, beyond that, we do not have any public responsibility. That is the wrong attitude. Louise Casey, in her report, says:"““The public are the most important weapon in tackling crime.””" She is right about that, and there was much in the report to welcome, although we thought that there were some gimmicks, too. I am not sure that I want to bring back tabards with ““Community Payback”” written on them. Public humiliation as part of a criminal justice strategy went out with the village stocks, and it is not likely to cut reoffending. We must concentrate on that issue.