Policing and Crime Bill

I shall be brief, because everyone is waiting for the Minister to sum up. The only reason why I wish to speak is that I produced a report, having sent a number of people around America and the UK, whose outcome tends towards this approach. The Government have drawn some of the provisions in this particular area from the report, and I therefore congratulate them on having read it. They are going in the right direction, but I wish to make two points. The UK has a major and growing problem with street gangs. The way in which cities in other parts of the world, particularly in America, have been successful in tackling the problem has been based on the idea of getting to younger kids earlier, on a looser parameter—not to make criminals of them; quite the contrary: the aim is to draw them out of criminality. The voluntary sector is involved, these people go into remedial education and they are got out of the gangs. Very few of them end up going through the criminal process in Boston—only the ringleaders do—and this approach is crucial in pulling them out of that once they have been identified. What follows is the necessary step of other organisations in the police stations picking them up straight away, and that has yet to be resolved. The definition is crucial in all of this; the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) was right to say that we need a clear definition. We know that the Home Office has a definition and that it has stuck it back in as an amendment, but we do not think it is sufficient; we think that the better amendment is one based more on what has been put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), because it is drawn directly from our report. There was a reason for that definition too, because we drew that from what people in Boston, New York, Glasgow and Liverpool, where there had been remarkable success, said to us. The point about the definition is first, that it must be good, and secondly, that all countries should use it. The Home Office definition is not used by every police force—it gets changed—but it should be universal, so I urge the Government to get the definition right and make it universal. I say to the Government and to colleagues on both sides of the House that gangs are a major problem. My area of Waltham Forest has seen murders and continuing violence from street gangs, and the situation is getting worse, not better. The police are tearing their hair out over this, and they need some help and support. Tackling this issue needs all the Government agencies, as well as the police, to operate, so I congratulate the Government on making the right moves forward, although much remains to be done.