Public Disorder

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

This has been a tragic week for my home city of Birmingham. It has been most obviously tragic for those who have lost their lives and their families and friends, but it has also been tragic for those whose businesses have been hit and whose property has been destroyed. My part of Birmingham was not dramatically affected by the disturbances, but the fear there was just as real as it was everywhere else.

We witnessed appalling scenes in Birmingham, other parts of the west midlands and elsewhere, about which there has rightly been unanimous condemnation in the House today. There has also been unanimity in calling for the right kind of robust police response. It is important too, however, that when our constituents call for things such as water cannon and rubber bullets, we faithfully report what the police say to us. The clear message from the police in the west midlands is that those things would, at best, have been irrelevant and could have been destructive if used. That is not to say that they should not be available in reserve; they already are, and they always have been. They were not appropriate on this occasion, however.

It was a time of appalling scenes, but it was also a time of real citizenship. I want to pay my own tribute to the emergency services and to echo what the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) said about West Midlands police and their officers. There are also countless council and other workers out there, cleaning up promptly through the night. We need to pay tribute to them.

I also pay tribute to the work of politicians of all parties on the city council and colleagues in this House, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). Real citizenship was shown by volunteers, too. The people who turned up with their brooms—interestingly, it was the Twitter network that brought people to the centre of Birmingham and elsewhere to clean up—were predominantly young, and that emphasises the fact that there should be no stigmatisation of young people. It was young people who drove the broom brigades.

As a city—this is probably the case elsewhere—we need at times like this to celebrate what is good about our city and what brings us together. We saw that graphically in the profound dignity of Tariq Jahan just last night. On Sunday, Birmingham will come together as a city. An event has been organised to celebrate the achievements of the racing driver Nigel Mansell, who will see a star in his name put on one of the main streets of Birmingham, but many of us are saying that we should make that event a celebration of our city, of what brings us together and of the fact that we are bigger and better than what we saw this week.

In the last few seconds that remain, let me say two things. It is not point scoring to warn about the impact of the coming police cuts. I hope that Government Members recognise that. It is also not point scoring to warn about the effects of cuts to services for young people. This is about keeping the infrastructure we need in place to prevent such things from happening again. If we are not to stigmatise people, we need to support them. That means that the infrastructure and services must be in place to give them a voice and to allow them to have the opportunities they need and demand. I do not mean those who were committing the violence this week, but the thousands of young people in Birmingham and up and down the country who say that they want more opportunity, want to see change and want to be listened to. We must listen to them, and that must be the message from this debate, too.