Crime and Policing

The right hon. Lady will know that I said that I want fewer CCTV cameras. That should be the aim of everybody in this Chamber, because people should be able to walk the streets free from the fear of crime and from actual crime. That should be our ultimate aim. She makes a big mistake if she thinks that CCTV is some great panacea. In my experience as a criminal barrister, in many cases involving CCTV evidence, I have had clients who have told me that they went down that alleyway to commit the offence because there was no CCTV. The danger of CCTV is that it pushes criminality down the alleyways into other places. The real solution is to tackle the causes of crime.