I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of her statement.
I wish, once again, to pay my respects to the victims of the Southport attacks. The murder of three young girls in Southport was horrific, and our thoughts are with them, their families and friends, and of course the local community.
My thoughts are also with the families and friends of those who were killed at the Notting Hill carnival. The Government and the Mayor of London must do more to end the criminality and violence that too regularly mar this event, and they must bring forward credible plans to improve safety well ahead of next year’s carnival.
I pay tribute to the bravery of our police officers across the country who put themselves in harm’s way to deal with the violence perpetrated by thugs this summer. There is not, and never can be, any excuse, justification or rationale for the violent disorder that we have seen. We cannot and will not let rioting thugs or extremists win. The Government must always back our police officers to do what is necessary to maintain law and order. Attacks on the police by any group must not be tolerated, and intimidation of the public or the media cannot be allowed.
Does the Home Secretary now see that the comments made by one of her Ministers at the time of the riots, seemingly making excuses for armed thugs who intimidated the media, undermines the Government’s credibility, reinforces the accusations of bias, and puts people, including police officers, at increased risk?
Does the Home Secretary now also recognise that the Labour leadership kneeling in the immediate aftermath of the Black Lives Matter disorder, when violent protestors attacked police officers, makes it look like her party takes some forms of violence less seriously than others? Does she accept that any perception whatsoever of treating the same crime differently, based on the race, religion or community of the perpetrator, increases tension rather than reduces it? Does she accept that, at times of heightened tension, Ministers must be, and must be seen to be, even-handed and demand even-handedness of others?
Does the Home Secretary also recognise that the delay in holding a Cobra meeting until almost a week after these events started was a mistake, that it created a vacuum and that it delayed the actions that could have brought this disorder to an end more quickly? At the time of the disorder, the Prime Minister claimed that he would create a “standing army” of public order police officers. What progress has been made in the intervening weeks to make that claim a reality?
After the murder of the three young girls in Southport, the right hon. Lady and I discussed across the Dispatch Box the impact of misinformation and disinformation online. When I was Home Secretary, I travelled to the United States to deliver this message directly to the leadership of the tech firms and to make clear what the British Government expected from them in this regard. Has the Home Secretary had any similar conversations
with the social media platforms about their responsibilities? And can she inform the House whether her Department will continue the review into police use of force, instituted by the Conservative Government of which I was a member, to ensure that the police are able to take firm action and clamp down on crime with all the force that the law allows, without fear of being strung up for years in endless investigations?
In government, we recruited 20,000 new police officers, but their work will be hampered if they do not feel supported by the Government when they take the firm action needed to keep the people of this country safe. Violence has absolutely no place on our streets. Anyone who engages in violent disorder or commits violent crime must face the full force of the law, no matter who they are. We will continue to hold the Government to account to ensure that they deal with disorder swiftly, effectively, fairly and even-handedly.