The Riots

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) for initiating the debate, and for the manner in which he made his remarks. I, too, agree with most, though not all, of what he said, and I am sure that that does not embarrass him. It is a good thing that the House can come to some agreement about the issues.

I hope that hon. Members will recognise that for the constituency of Tottenham this has been the most disturbing of summers, and I want to make my remarks in the context of what the riots mean for our country as a whole. For any constituency to experience two riots within a generation is a major tragedy—not just for that constituency, but for the country. When I was 13, I was growing up yards from the Broadwater Farm estate, and for me it has been poignant and stressful to represent the constituency 25 years later. I know what it is for someone to grow up in Tottenham, and to fill in double the number of application forms, because they must fill in the N17 or N15 postcode and are worried that they will not get an interview as they are from Tottenham. A huge stigma attached to my constituency for many years. Indeed, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) ran against me when I was first selected for the constituency and she will recall that in 2000 that stigma remained.

I think that, despite much deprivation and poverty, before August this year most people, when they thought of Tottenham, thought of the football club and whether it was staying or going, not of the riots, so it is particularly tragic for the constituency that they happened. Many people have asked me whether things have changed and are moving on. Of course, there is tremendous resilience in the people of Tottenham. I might say, as a son of Tottenham, that there is tremendous resilience in me. However, there is obviously deep frustration, anger and fury that the riots should have happened. It is right to express my constituents’ concern that the riots might not have needed to happen, which brings me to the incident that started the summer of unrest—the death of Mark Duggan in the Tottenham Hale area of my constituency.

If there has been any success in policing in our country, and in most developed countries, in the past 20 to 25 years—this is a matter beyond party allegiance—it has been down to the innovations behind community and neighbourhood policing. I am proud of my party’s record in bringing that forward, but it is something that, across political parties, we cherish and want to encourage.

The real tragedy of what happened at the beginning of August was a total breakdown, it seems to me, in community policing. We had an Operation Trident incident that the local police did not know about. A young man lost his life, and his family found out about it on television. All of us who are parents know that there is that fear—

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Lammy]

Before the Division, I was talking about community policing—its successes, but also a breakdown that I think happened in this case. A Trident operation was taking place in Tottenham Hale in my constituency. It is not clear at this stage what that operation was about or why it chose to enter into what led to firearms being discharged in a busy traffic area at the height of commuter time on the Thursday evening before the riots.

I am deeply concerned that many London MPs—indeed, MPs across the country—have got used to a scenario in which they tend to be more comfortable with local police with local intelligence and connections. However, if police come into their area for any kind of operation, they are far more nervous. Often, when things do not go according to plan, that involves officers coming into the area. In looking at the matter—I know that there are several inquiries—we need to reflect on how operations beyond a local area can use local knowledge and intelligence. I do not know the circumstances of the operation or why it took place, but clearly it led to the death of Mark Duggan.

[Mr Mark Field]

I accept some of the concerns that the right hon. Gentleman has put into mind. We all appreciate in London that community policing needs to be by consent, and there were clearly issues in the case. However, another aspect of communication was lacking in the Tottenham case, something he might come on to.

A deep concern for many of us present is that, almost at a mendacious level, the Metropolitan police, through its communications department, put out only part of the story. The rumour that went round was that there had been an exchange of fire, which clearly was not the case. If that had been an isolated incident, we might have put it to one side, but as we all know, there were similar issues regarding the death of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005. That is a deep concern, beyond the usual suspects of those who might be concerned about police behaviour. There is a sense that, all too often, the police try to get across a communication with a spin approach in relation to activities in which tragic deaths occur. That all too often begins to unravel rapidly, with the terrible results that we saw in August.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. With great sadness, I say that, for the first time in many years, there is a strong sense of “them and us” in communities such as the one I represent. It seems that the Metropolitan police is unable not to close ranks or not see briefings on a particular incident filter out before the facts have been properly and independently assessed. Of course, for those who were looking on at the incident—this was in a place with busy traffic, and many people were in the local area—the account that they picked up in the initial radio and television broadcasts and the papers the next day did not accord with what they themselves had seen. Immediately, in the hours that followed, there was a trust deficit and a breakdown of the sense of policing by consent, whereby the community and the police work side by side and recognise that, in any organisation, things can and do go wrong, and individuals can make the wrong judgment. Of course, I do not pass judgment on what happened.

Then we had the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has sought to apologise for its press office briefing in which it was said that Mark Duggan had fired a gun. It turned out that that statement was wholly premature and wholly untrue. My community needs to believe in the IPCC after the catastrophe that was the Police Complaints Authority. Mistakes such as that statement are catastrophic for that trust.

All of us who are parents know that feeling when our children leave the house: we have this paranoid sense that something is going to go wrong and we think: “They are not going to come back. Somebody is going to knock on my door.” Every parent who experiences the death of a child deserves a better service. The fact that things did not happen in the appropriate way is surely something that shames us all. This family found themselves stuck in the middle. The local police say, “It is not our responsibility. We have to back off now.” The national organisation says, “Is this our responsibility? Are we meant to do this?” The following day, after the liaison has not gone appropriately, people find out from the television what has happened, and rumours begin to circulate because of a disjunction between what communities saw and what is being briefed and said. There is a peaceful protest outside the police station, which is not unusual in the context of my constituency and other constituencies in London when someone dies following police contact. The appropriate senior officer is not there. It takes some time to get someone there, then answers are not forthcoming in the way the family expect and want. We know what happens as a consequence.

The Metropolitan police understand that there must be an inquiry on the matter to see what led up to the riots. The IPCC is also inquiring into those initial few hours and what role they played. The consequence of the actions has been huge.

I, too, have sat with the deputy borough commander and looked at the footage of what took place in Tottenham on that night—that was at my request. The scenes that I saw were some of the most depressing I have ever witnessed. I have sat with families who have been victims of knife crimes and I have done some inquest cases that involved some horrific things, but the scenes that I saw were depressing. I expected to see anger and frustration on the faces of some of those who were attacking Tottenham high road, but instead I saw joy and happiness. That is why it was so depressing.

I was categorical in my condemnation of what we saw in Tottenham on that Saturday night and Sunday morning. There can be no excuse whatever for the large-scale arson that we saw in London. The fact that no one is dead as a consequence is truly amazing. We saw 56 properties burn to the ground and 50 families lost their homes and all their possessions. Young children are still experiencing nightmares as a consequence of what happened and independent shopkeepers, the vast majority of whom have migrated to this country, again face financial ruin as a consequence of riots. That is totally unacceptable. People who get up every single day to go to work had their businesses burned to the ground. I caution those who rush to make excuses for this kind of behaviour because it is wholly unacceptable and we must remain firm on the choice that people have to make.

We had a debate earlier this week about some of the underlying causes of gun violence. I remember a difficult period in the late 1970s and early 1980s when young people such as me had a choice about whether to get caught up with the mob. I made my choice back then and I stand by it now. I will not, 25 years later, change my mind about the difference between right and wrong when it leads to such loss for ordinary, decent, hard-working people. The attack on the community and the police was ferocious. I saw scenes on the video that looked a bit like Grand Theft Auto. Young people were lining up trolleys to barricade themselves away from the police. Extinguishers were thrown at the police and a gun was pulled on them. We saw people casually setting fire to buildings.

When I was rung by the police on the Saturday evening and told that a car was burning outside the police station, my first response was to wonder why the car was left in the way that it was by the police. I then hoped that the fire would be put out quickly. A second car was set on fire, then a bus was set alight. I wondered why the initial policing was not there, because Spurs were playing and there was a huge police presence in the area.

What took place across the rest of the country in the days ahead was mirrored in the London borough of Haringey. The Tottenham retail park was looted for hours and no police were present. When the manager of Comet showed me the photographs and the CCTV footage of what took place, it was clear that there were more people in his shop that night than are ever there during the day. Although the lights were off, it was like Christmas day because the lights from people’s mobile phones could be seen. People were looking for goods and helping themselves. The place had nothing left in it by morning, and that is one of the biggest and most successful Comets in the country. We do not need to talk about JD Sports; that had the same image in the Tottenham retail area. Wood Green, one of our important shopping areas in north London, was totally ransacked for hours and hours.

What happens when good, hard-working people who live in those areas see no policing? Bad news is the consequence. Young teenagers who may never have been involved with the police get caught up. The same is true of those who are in their 20s, which was the profile of many of those who were arrested. This cannot be the formula for proper policing by consent. As MP for Tottenham, I understand the consequences and issues of that night. I have to raise million of pounds to regenerate the area. Who will provide that money?

I am pleased, of course, that the Mayor of London has allocated initial funds for the riot area, but the irony is that the two areas of London that were bidding to become enterprise zones were Croydon and Tottenham. The reason that we spent most of last year fighting each other to get an enterprise zone, and demanding of the Mayor that we get one, is that the scale of regeneration necessary in Tottenham, even before the riots, was on a par with that in other parts of the country that have seen far greater regeneration. I am talking about Salford and parts of Manchester, parts of Birmingham and the Olympic area. Tottenham will need a far bigger story than the neighbourhood renewal that is being proposed. I believe that the community in Tottenham deserves that regeneration. We need jobs. I need the other half of the BBC. I need some major back-office Departments or quangos. Tottenham deserves that, Edmonton deserves it and the wider north-east London area deserves it. I hope that the community will now get it.

[Katy Clark in the Chair]

There has been some suggestion that if Spurs stay in the local area and renew their ground, that will be enough. Of course it will not be enough. I want Spurs to stay in the area, but a football club cannot possibly be the anchor of regeneration in an area that is struggling so much, such as Tottenham. There are big questions about the policing, and therefore about what the regeneration response will be as a result of the damage that was caused.

I want to raise a couple of other issues in relation to the broader issue of policing with consent. The first is that I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to police with consent if the police do not reflect and look like the community that they serve. I hope that hon. Members will understand that I am not talking now in a sort of old-fashioned, socialist, equal opportunity kind of way. I am talking about pragmatic policing and how to police a busy urban area. It cannot be acceptable that, despite the advances that have been made, we have 32,441 police officers in the Met and only 867 of them are from a black or black British background. Just 4.7% of the police officers in the country are from ethnic minorities.

We all know London and we all recognise that there are boroughs in London, such as my own, where more than half the people in the community are from an ethnic minority background. If we are not to walk down the road that America has walked down—with armed police—and if we are to maintain our model of policing with consent, what does that consent really feel and look like? And how can we accelerate this process? It will take a lot more than good will and fine rhetoric. It will take some serious, positive action to get a move on with the kind of numbers that we now need if we are to protect the integrity of a police force that does not routinely carry guns.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It might surprise him to know that a lot of police officers—maybe even the vast majority—would thoroughly agree with him on that point and would desperately like to see black and Asian members of the police force, as I would myself, but some of the responsibility lies not with the police, who have thrown open their arms and said that they want this change, but with leading and influential members of the black community in parts of London. We need to encourage them to go out and say, “The police force would welcome your application and it really wants you to join,” because that is the reality. The police feel that they are not getting support from those influential members of the black community. I hope that we will get it soon.

[Mr Lammy]

This debate is rather circular, because the hon. Gentleman will understand that the kind of summer that we have had and the run-up to it have not done a great deal to encourage the very young people I need to join the police force to go out and do so. Nevertheless, I lay bare the scale of the problem.

Many of us here today will have landed in cities in America, looked at the police force and the local community, and thought, “Wow! I wish we had that here!” If it can be done on the streets of New York, it can be done here. That is what we need to learn from Bill Bratton, who has come to town. The same thing must be done here or I am afraid that our whole policing model will become very hard to maintain.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I agree entirely with the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. However, in relation to New York, does he know whether there is evidence that the better representation of black and minority ethnic communities, for instance in the police force, automatically leads to more effective policing by consent?

[Mr Lammy]

Of course, serious issues remain for all police forces, particularly those policing urban areas, but at the heart of the discussion, as other hon. Members have said, is trust. I was a very young man and lawyer when the first round of debate about stop and search happened, and here we are—25 years later—still having that same debate. When will we put it to one side?

Let us look at the figures. Young black people are stopped and searched at seven times the rate of young white people, and some are stopped at 27 times the rate of young white people, particularly where there is a section 60 order in place. There is a section 60 order in place in my constituency. That issue is very real. I am not suggesting that we should abandon stop and search. It seems to me that those who argue for the abandonment of stop and search need to stop and think. The No. 1 issue that young people are raising in London is knife crime, and against that backdrop of course we must have stop and search. It is patently obvious that to keep young people feeling safe on their way to and from school, we must stop and search, but we must do it intelligently and with a police force that the broader community trusts. That is why the figures that I have cited in relation to the ethnic minority profile of the police are so crucial.

In addition, I am hugely critical of the decision effectively to downgrade stop and account, and stop and search. I still believe that when a police officer stops and searches someone, they should put down the name of the person that they stopped and they should certainly put down whether there has been any injury or damage as a consequence. I sat on the delegated legislation Committee dealing with the changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 code and stop and search, and I listened to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice make arguments about bureaucracy, but I say to the Government that those are precisely the issues that undercut trust in the fact that stop and search can be done intelligently. That is leading to real antagonism among young men, particularly young black men in London.

I have been stopped and searched. I was stopped and searched during the last general election.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Wasn’t your rosette a giveaway? [Laughter.]

[Mr Lammy]

I was not wearing my rosette on that occasion; I had taken it off. I was stopped and searched. I was not happy about it, but I understood. Obviously, I opened my mouth to speak, although I did not say who I was because I wanted to see how it would pan out, and it was okay.

Stop and search is a reality of communities such as mine, but it must be done with trust. I am also concerned about the officers who are doing it. If we are to have a Met, I want young people—I do not care what their colour is, actually—who have grown up on the streets of Hackney, Peckham, Camberwell, Tottenham and Kensal Rise in our police force. I do not want a police force that effectively consists of young men and women who have grown up anywhere but in London. I must say that too many officers come from far-flung areas, which means that the relationship-building process with communities is problematic.

[Gavin Barwell]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that what is wrong is not the policy per se, but a lack of empathy and understanding on the part of young people of what it is like to be a police officer and to have to approach a group of young people and stop them? More importantly, as he says, there is a lack of understanding among police officers who are not local to a community about what it is like to be someone who is stopped every time they go out at the weekend and to see a lack of respect in the way that that is done? The problem is not the policy per se, but the way it is being applied.

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman puts his point well. In a civilised country, a burden always lies on the majority, and some of what we say in such a country relates to how the minority are treated. I have met young men—good young men—at university. I asked two young men who run the youth group at my local church whether they had been stopped and searched. One had had a good experience; the other had had several experiences that were not so good and had left him embarrassed and demoralised in relation to his local community. The differentiation that one needs to make in a complex, multi-layered, multicultural, multiracial London of subcultures takes local knowledge and understanding, and we need to face up to that truth.

There are questions about why the rioting took place on the scale that it did, against the backdrop of 460 people having died as a result of police contact since the IPCC was set up and not one police officer having been convicted. I ask hon. Members to think about those statistics and about why a community such as mine finds it extraordinary that, following Mark Duggan’s death in August, measures were not put in place to anticipate the worst, given current levels of unemployment and the fact that too many young people were out on the streets with nothing to do.

It is important that I qualify my use of “young people”. When I speak to my secondary schools, not one of their young people has been arrested, and when I look at the profile of arrests, there is a tiny proportion of under-18s.

When someone gets well into their 20s, I believe that they account for their own behaviour, so the caricaturing of young people that I saw this summer and some of rhetoric about race made me deeply ashamed to be part of this country. It was so sad to see us slip back to the sort of discourse we saw in the 1980s. I was disappointed that major national shows such as “Newsnight” could get their presentation of the issues so badly wrong. Let me say in this House to David Starkey, “How do I sound? I sound English because I am English, thank you very much.” For one of our historians to be allowed to question me in the way that he did was a disgrace, and it undermines the importance of the debate and the 20,000 young people sitting at home in my constituency, wanting to do what is best, but worried and anxious about what is going on. It is for those young people that I hope we all play our part in properly regenerating Tottenham, ensuring that there are opportunities and a growth strategy. We cannot have a constituency with the highest unemployment in London left to sink when bankers and others are bailed out.

[Katy Clark (in the Chair)]

The previous Chair asked Members to keep their contributions brief. The Member who has just spoken took more than 30 minutes, so I, too, ask Members to speak for a shorter time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is right about the first point; I shall come to the second point in a moment, if I may.

A tribute has already been paid to the emergency services. For reasons of time, I have not repeated it in detail. The strength of it is none the less undiminished. Remarkable bravery and professionalism were shown. In terms of specific Government activities, the DCLG and Business Link have set up web pages providing advice and information. Wandsworth and many other councils have taken the steps that have been referred to.

To look on the positive side, and perhaps to put things in perspective, for every person arrested, 15 people followed the “Riot Clean Up” Twitter feed. There is a good side to this, which we should not forget. We have ensured that the faith communities have been closely involved throughout. Reference has been made to appropriate and condign sentencing. That will continue. It is a matter for the courts, but the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice are also looking at the means of increasing the rate of recovery of fines for those who are not sentenced to custody; I think most people think that right and proper.

The Riot (Damages) Act 1886 is of course an important route for compensation. That has been referred to. We extended the claims deadline from 14 to 42 days. There is a helpline and website linked to a claims bureau at the Home Office to give further advice. Thus far, there have been 775 calls and more than 1,000 claims, in addition to claims made by insurers direct to police authorities.

On the same day as the Prime Minister’s statement, the Government announced a £10 million recovery scheme to help local authorities with their immediate costs. That operates on a similar basis to the Bellwin scheme, but does not have the qualifying threshold of 0.2% of revenue budget. That makes it easier for local authorities to receive support. Above the threshold, the Bellwin scheme has been activated.

We have offered advice and support to all the local authorities affected; they have dedicated contact officials at the Department. Some 35 local authorities have registered for the £20 million high street support scheme, which was set up specifically to support small and medium-sized enterprises affected.

We have listened to local partners and extended the payment deadline to 3 January, and extended the deadline for local authorities to submit claims to 31 January. That seems appropriate, so that local authorities can try to get going in the run-up to Christmas. It is also worth paying tribute to the business community. A £3 million charitable “High Street Fund” has been set up by Sir William Castell and the Wellcome Foundation, with a £500,000 donation from the Mayor of London, to offer immediate recovery grants. Business in the Community and the British Retail Consortium have also played an active part.

Inland Revenue has handled some 1,286 calls and agreed to some 162 time-to-pay agreements for customers whose cash flow is affected, worth about £3.4 million. We have also set aside £1 million for a homelessness support scheme to deal with the immediate re-housing costs of those who were directly made homeless. Every household that approached their local authority for assistance has either been re-housed or provided with advice and assistance. In Haringey, we have provided £35,000 for two caseworkers to support families in the River Heights estate. I, along with the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), held a recovery advice surgery for MPs from affected constituencies, which a number of hon. Members present attended.

We have set up the Riot Communities and Victims Panel, chaired by Darra Singh. I will check whether it has been to Hackney, but it is carrying out a number of visits around the country. I am sure that its objective is to meet as many authorities as possible. The panel will publish an interim report in November and present a final report to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in March 2012.

It is worth highlighting the community response, such as the “Love” campaigns in Manchester and Salford, “Liverpool Clean Up”, and the work done by Haringey’s community assistance centre, Tottenham Green leisure centre, and the volunteers in Vauxhall. In the medium term, we are providing £20 million through the London enterprise fund for the regeneration of Tottenham and Croydon, which will be administered alongside the Mayor of London’s £50 million recovery fund.

[Mr Lammy]

Does the Minister recognise that £10 million for Tottenham will simply not be sufficient for the needs of the poorest constituency in London?

[Robert Neill]

That is specific targeting that goes to Tottenham and Croydon, in recognition of their circumstances, which no others receive. In addition, the Mayor has announced taskforces for Tottenham and Croydon. The one for Tottenham is headed by Sir Stuart Lipton, and that for Croydon by Julian Metcalfe, the entrepreneur behind Pret A Manger. It is not the end of the story.

I welcome the support from the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) for Louise Casey and her work in the problem families unit in my Department. The unit is working to deliver early interventions to 120,000 problem families. We are consulting on the question of evicting antisocial families. I know that different views have been expressed in the debate, but we think that that is a legitimate tool that should be in the box, and authorities of all political complexions have viewed it as an appropriate option. Ultimately, such matters are decided by the courts.

Finally, the Home Secretary is leading a cross-Government review with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the problem of gang violence, which is a huge issue that we certainly need to tackle. Powerful points were made in the debate, and I am sure that they will inform the work of that review. I hope that I have given hon. Members an indication of the serious steps that the Government have been taking to deal with the issue.