Young People (Violent Crime)

HC Deb 06 December 1985 vol 88 cc533-87 9.36 am

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden)

I beg to move, That this House views with great concern the problem of violent crime committed by the young; notes the important influence which parents, the schools and the media can have in their formative years; and calls upon the Government to lead a renewed and vigorous effort to develop in our young people an increased sense of responsibility and awareness of the interests of their fellow citizens, and to encourage their more active participation in their communities.

The motion has a broad canvas, and yet in the context of violence by young people it may be thought to be drawn too narrowly because it does not invite the House to consider the influence of unemployment, poor housing conditions or badly planned, inhuman and congested housing estates. That is not because I do not consider that any or all of those problems have no consequence whatever, but because I know that the House has addressed itself recently to their effects.

My purpose today is to call attention to those influences where the individual, by his own actions and example, can help to reduce the chances of young people committing acts of violence. I hope that my motion will enable us to concentrate on those more personal influences where people have a constructive role.

The growth of violence in our society has aroused great concern on both sides of the House. The figures for crimes of violence against the person—homicide, attempted murder and serious wounding—have nearly doubled in the past 10 years. What has caused most anxiety has been the level of violence among young people. There is no way of knowing how much violent crime young people commit. All we have are the figures of those cautioned or found guilty in the courts. The figures for 1974 show that 49,879 were found guilty or cautioned for crimes of violence. By 1985 that figure had risen to 68,500.

Of course, there are more young people today than 10 years ago, reflecting the baby boom of the 1960s. Nevertheless—this is what is so disturbing about the figures—the proportion of young people found guilty or cautioned for crimes of violence is higher. Most surprising of all, the biggest increase is among the 14 to 17 age group.

It is easy to seek scapegoats, but we are all involved in our society and the tasks of parenthood and teaching have become even more demanding. There is no one reason, but I believe that I shall carry the House with me when I say that the causes lie in the fact that we live in a country in transition, not only industrially and economically but socially and morally.

We talk of a return to Victorian values—discipline, hard work, voluntary service, a pride and involvement in the community, patriotism and a respect for law and order. All those we associate with the Victorian era. But it was also a time, so well described by Dickens, of grinding poverty, exploitation, hunger, human misery, harsh authoritarianism and moral hypocrisy.

The strides that we have made since then have shown that we have grasped the threads of humanism. Our social and welfare legislation of the 20th century ushered in a kinder and more tolerant society, greater respect for the individual and his desire for personal fulfilment and freedom of choice, and, I believe, a system of justice that has been shorn of much of its harshness.

However, over the past decades, and even longer, with those improvements have come a decline in moral values and discipline, less respect for our institutions and the rule of law, and a desire among some sections of the community for instant and selfish gratification—to be achieved, if necessary, by force. We have also had to contend with the effects of the second world war—the second world war this century—which may have had some effect on the problem.

To a large extent, the old rules have gone and the power of the Church has diminished, as has some of our traditional tolerance. We do not appear to know how or with what to replace them. We do not know how to reconcile the need for an orderly society with our need for a wider freedom or how to have discipline and regulation without unfeeling authoritarianism. Perhaps that is why parents and teachers find it so difficult to discharge their duties and why so many children, growing up in an unsure and ill-defined framework of rules and regulations, regard them as arbitrary and too dependent on whim.

Therefore, the ties of family have become weaker, families are smaller and fewer families have had the experience of their Victorian ancestors where the older children first learnt the art of rearing children by looking after their younger brothers and sisters.

Many families have moved away from their roots. Indeed, hon. Members will remember our debates about the effects on families of moving to new towns—known as the new town blues. Families were separated from their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, who, when the family lived within a nuclear unit, often lent a hand. Of course, we are all familiar with the growth of one-parent families, the problems that that causes, and the destructive effect on children.

Faced with all those difficulties, it is not surprising that there are parents—especially the poor and the less well-educated, those with criminal records or those living in the poorer areas in our inner cities—who, not surprisingly, have lost confidence in their ability to discharge their responsibilities, especially to their adolescent children.

My following remarks will be addressed to ways in which we can strengthen the family. The findings of an investigation known as "Delinquency: its roots, careers and prospects" provide some hope. The first step is to help people in poverty. It is better to spend money supporting those families than to spend even larger sums employing social workers after the damage has been done. I hope that that is what the reform of our welfare services, promised by the Government, will achieve. In addition, a whole raft of measures, from day nursery provision, parental guidance centres and, not least, opportunities to inculcate into deprived children a different sense of values, should be pursued.

I believe that that means paying more attention in schools to the problems of the troublesome child. The earlier that is done, the better the chances of success. It means giving them an opportunity to achieve at school, even if it is not academic achievement. I sometimes think that the emphasis placed on academic achievement, at the expense of simply achievement, can do more damage to the psychology of children than anything else that happens during school hours.

The influence of the teacher cannot be emphasised too strongly. I accept that teachers quite rightly say that it is not for them to take on the role of parents. Teachers have a great many responsibilities. However, they also say that schools are not just examination factories and that education should be concerned with turning out good citizens. All the more reason why our schools in areas of high criminal activity should play a greater role in combating juvenile delinquency.

I urge my hon. Friend the Minister and his Department to call upon my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to encourage the growth of pastoral care. The earlier that the emotional problems of the child are observed and treated, the better the chance that that child will not turn to crime.

I am not simply espousing theory; research has been carried out, and experience has been gained. What we need is action, and something more. The decline in religious teaching and worship in our schools is leading to a moral vacuum. If people do not go to church, where else can our youngsters expect to develop a sense of what is morally right? Should it be in the home? Yes, of course, where that is possible, but it should always happen in school. Did not that great headmaster Dr. Thomas Arnold say about schools: What we must look for here is first, religious and moral principle, second gentlemanly conduct and third intellectual ability."? The phrase "gentlemanly conduct" may sound a little old-fashioned these days, but perhaps such conduct leads to less violence—does it not?

Can the media, especially television as it is the most powerful medium of communication, play a more active role? A recent report by 15 teachers—with no axe to grind, and the BBC and IBA knew all about it—said: It became clear in the course of discussions with producers and others working for the BBC and ITV companies that there was little agreement among them about the wider educational influence and possibilities of television. Producers often assumed that any discussion of the educational role of the programmes was an attempt to press them into taking a more didactic stance in their productions … It is not possible to separate the responsibilities to educate and to entertain into such self-contained boxes. Yet it seems that programme makers often do so. As a consequence they fail to recognise or act upon the conflict and continuity between the duties to educate and to entertain. It is this failure to link the two that causes concern to teachers, parents and others.

Many people find it strange that so much television is preoccupied with violence. It is estimated that young people aged between nine and 14 years of age spend an average of 23 hours a week watching television, sometimes far into the night. What a waste. Just think what could happen if some of them spent 23 hours practising a musical instrument; they would learn to play it and would achieve something of lasting benefit.

Be that as it may, those youngsters watch television and there is violence on television. I accept that it would be inconceivable to have television without violence, for television must reflect the world as it is rather than as some of us would like it to be or therein lies the road to censorship. However, I ask parents to remember that there is such a thing as the on-off switch. It is their responsibility not to allow their children to watch late-night movies.

We often praise the system of broadcasting for its quality. Indeed, its products have earned world-wide admiration. Therefore, it is only fair to say that the same people who lead that industry with considerable skill, imagination and integrity are the very same people who must make very difficult judgments about what is suitable for a wide-ranging audience. They must bear in mind the well-researched fact that individuals vary considerably in their perceptions of violence.

Only recently, a senior research officer of the IBA said about people's perceptions: The more closely a fictional setting approaches or resembles everyday life and the more graphic the portrayal of pain and suffering, the greater should be the care we take over the decision of whether such a portrayal should be shown and whether a programme that contains it should be transmitted. It is precisely because the broadcasting authorities are perceived by Mrs. Mary Whitehouse and others to, have neglected that fact that has led to demands for censorship and more effective controls over the showing of violence on television.

Such people are bitterly offended and, to judge from some of the examples that they put before us, that is not surprising. In my view, the critics have a point, and the origins of it stem from technological innovation as well as criticisms of personal judgment. Many of today's programmes which contain violence are made in real life settings because the new lightweight cameras are very portable and require little, and at times no, additional lighting, so that they can be taken to locations where the acting has a reality that is difficult to simulate in a studio.

For the unsophisticated and undeveloped mind—the juvenile mind—it can be difficult to separate what is real from what is not. It is not surprising that such developments have made possible the new television phenomenon known as the docudrama, where fact and fiction meet, and it can even deceive the sophisticated adult.

It is argued by responsible people inside and outside broadcasting that there is no causal proof of a link between violence on the screen and violence on the street. Looking at the research, it is difficult for a layman such as myself to know where the balance of the argument lies because research by responsible researchers can point either way. Much depends on the methodology and, as a layman, I find it hard to make a judgment as to who wins that argument.

It is clear, however, that over the years more and more research findings have conluded that the frequent viewing of television can influence some people to commit violent crime and that repeated exposure to television violence increases the chances that a spectator will act violently. Even some of those who deny a causative effect admit that television can have a reinforcement influence.

One of the most interesting pieces of research was done in the early 1970s by William Belson. His report, "Television violence in the adolescent boy," contained the principal finding that there was strong evidence to support the view that long-term exposure to television violence increased substantially the extent to which London boys engaged in acts of serious violence.

That finding does not stand alone. Many others, here and in the United States, support that opinion. The most recent study, conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health in America, reported in 1982 that the consensus among most of the research community is that violence does lead to aggressive behaviour by children and teenagers who watch the programmes.

That concern is shared by exalted people such as Lord Lane, the Lord Chief Justice. It could be argued that in this area his opinion should carry no more weight than that of ordinary mortals. He is an expert on the law, but that does not make him an expert on research into behavioural attitudes and responses. Nevertheless, I should have thought that Lord Lane would be a cautious man when giving opinions on such an issue. He was reported in July of this year as saying that violence in films and on television, including in news reports, had contributed to an alarming increase in the nastiness of crime. He went on to say that it was now accepted as common form that once you have your victim on the ground, you kick him, preferably on the stomach or on the head, where the blows are likely to do maximum injury.

Lord Scarman, in his report on the Brixton disorders, saw the broadcasting medium as bearing some responsibility for the escalation of violence. A former colleague of ours, Eric Moonman, who conducted interviews among the people of Toxteth, wrote: The influence of television on their responses to the situation could not be doubted. TV made it look easy. They knew what kind of thing to do. The BBC and IBA are statutory bodies and among their duties is the duty to listen to and heed public opinion. Indeed, both organisations claim that they do so. The IBA has a code of conduct which it was statutorily compelled to compile. It is a lengthy, detailed document which was drawn up with great care. One paragraph referring to the portrayal of violence states: There is portrayed violence which is potentially so disturbing that it might be psychologically harmful, particularly for young or emotionally insecure viewers. Every producer must have regard to that comment.

The BBC has no code, but it has its own guidelines, and they too are lengthy, well constructed and the consequence of a great deal of thought. They include the passage: a consensus of research suggests that de-sensitisation can result from an excess of violence and the amount and treatment of violence needs to be carefully examined all the time. To judge from comments that are being made, it is possible that the public and the broadcasting organisations are getting our of step, in which case it would be helpful for the BBC and IBA to explain in greater detail to the public their policy towards violence. They might provide examples of when they think it appropriate to apply the code or guidelines to producers and when not to apply it. They could say whether they are contemplating revising their practices and, if not, why not. They might also tell the public about research that they carry out into the effects of their programmes.

There is another reason why it would be in the interests of British broadcasting to set a lead and take the public into its confidence. We are on the brink of an expansion in the number of television channels we can receive. Not all of even the English language programmes will be in British ownership or transmitted by British companies. There is a distinct risk that more will not mean better, that more will not lead to more choice, and that standards will fall. Standards cannot always be upheld by popular choice in the market place. As with many things in life, the people may not have a will to uphold decent and fair standards. We need the institutional framework.

Britain has a reputation for creating authorities by which, as in the broadcasting world, regulation can coexist with freedom of expression. Our broadcasting organisations will continue to carry influence abroad and help to shape international regulation and a decent framework only if they are seen to observe higher standards at home, and in that respect I look to the Government to give their every assistance, for their sake and for that of our children.

9·58 am

Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

The opportunity to debate these matters arises because the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), who introduced the debate, believes that issues are involved that merit other than a knee-jerk response. When discussing violence by young people, it is often easy to use clichés that suggest that there is an instant remedy to the problem. The Home Office knows as well as any other Department of State that, in spite of the endeavours of British Governments and those of other countries, and of many agencies outside the Government, it remains necessary to explore the issues carefully and to be careful about suggesting that there can be instant solutions. Many Governments and many agencies have tried and are trying to deal with the enormously complex reasons and practices that make up the violence among our young generation.

I shall cite three examples from my personal experience, which are three microcosms of the problem. These experiences are based in London and they all relate to matters that have arisen over the past few years. The first is a common example. It is the complete despair of parents who have never committed offences and who have done all that they can to instil a code of morality in their children. They despair when they see their children being violent, often week after week. When their children leave junior school and enter senior school, they see them being violent at home, violent with friends and violent with neighbours and others, apart from being verbally violent and violent towards those for whom they have no affection and with whom they have no affinity. These parents wring their hands and fear that they must be to blame for their children's behaviour.

In most such cases, it would be wrong to say that the parents are to blame. Parents in that position will have done all within their knowledge and power, and in the general parental upbringing that they have practised they will have done a good job by objective standards. A particular family that I have in mind could have been accused of over-indulging the children. However, there was no excuse or explanation in that over-indulgence for the way in which at least one of the children behaved regularly. As a youth worker, I would find myself standing between a carving knife held by the youngster and the parent, with the youngster wanting to lunge the knife into the parent because of something that the parent had done or said. I would find myself trying to disarm the youngster when, for example, he was holding, prior to throwing, a milk bottle to smash into others who were not very far away.

The second example is an occasion when, as a practising lawyer before being elected to this place, I was reading my newspaper on the train as I travelled to a court at Oxford. I read that a youngster whom I knew had been arrested for the alleged murder of a girl whom I knew. The incident had happened in Peckham. It came as a shock to me to read their names in a national daily newspaper.

When I returned that evening, I met the group of whom the lad was a member. I discussed with the members of the group what their view would be if it were proved, as eventually it was, that the young man, who was a member of the youth club of which I was a leader, had killed his girlfriend. I asked them what they thought would happen to him if he were convicted of the girl's murder. His friends, who had been with him the week before, said that if he had killed someone he should be hanged. They had no more sympathy for someone who overstepped the bounds that they regarded as sacrosanct because he was their friend than for anyone else, even though they were equally prone to violence and any one of them might have been the person who committed the violence. Indeed, one of them was much more likely, in my estimation, to behave in that way than the person who actually had.

Thirdly, there is a rather more general example of the way in which the prevalence of violence in many areas reflects upon people's daily lives. On 19 December there will be a local authority by-election in Southwark. It will take place in the Peckham constituency, not in mine. It would be a by-election in the Liddle ward, comprising some of the estates that have been reported in the national press recently as being among the worst in London, such as Gloucester Grove, North Peckham, Camden and others.

The reality of life for political parties reflects the reality of life on these estates. Party supporters will not canvass at night. They are unwilling, however bold they may be, and however able they are to go out with others, to knock on people's doors at night. They are afraid for their own physical safety. In other words, they are afraid of violence, primarily at the hands of young people. Secondly, they are afraid that they will be seeking to induce people to open their doors, which would be unfair on them. Those behind the doors do not normally open their doors after dark, because they expect violent things to happen. That is common, and not the exception. This third example confronts us with the seriousness of the issue with which we are seeking to deal.

Fortunately, the level of violent crime, as a proportion of all crimes perpetrated by young people, is very low. There is a mass of crime involving offences against property, and a lesser amount, thank God, involving offences against people. We must distinguish between the two groups of crime. In a way, one can regard offences involving property—for example, stealing a video or breaking in and taking money—as understandable. It is difficult to extend that understanding to crimes against the person. We can understand youngsters wanting to meet their daily needs by acquiring possessions that they do not have. That is much easier to understand than the feeling that they might have to attack an old person who may have little money or possessions on him. We must put into perspective the proportion of violent criminality, while recognising that it occupies the largest part of the public's perception because it is more serious, more threatening and more menacing than crime involving property.

My second general proposition is that we must be careful not to generalise. The causes of violent crime are especially difficult to determine and often arise for different reasons, even when perpetrated successively by the same individual. The reason for a 16-year-old taking part in a violent assault on a police officer at a football match, or on the way to or from that match, might be very different from the reason for that person behaving violently in another social context a few days or weeks later. We must examine each event and try to diagnose the factors that go to explain it.

The hon. Member for Wealden was right to say that there are many factors, both near and remote, which are accumulating influences, not all of which are understood by the youngster at the receiving end. One primary influence is the family. There are many more small families nowadays. Families tend to live for much longer in small units. We may often find one parent and one child, or one parent and two children, living together. Family units were much larger not all that long ago, and the influence of others, such as grandparents or other older relatives, used to be much greater. In many families there are fewer restraining and inhibiting factors than there used to be. There are fewer people to agree on and present a common code of morality.

I have in mind a wonderful family, the members of which are my friends. There are 13 children; it goes almost without saying that the parents are Irish and Roman Catholics. The members of the family act as the best possible check upon one another. Although they suffered from great deprivation in a general sense, in terms of income, finance and housing when they were young, they had enormous family solidarity. They can provide support for one another; they can entertain one another; they can go out with one another; they can occupy one another and discipline one another; they can take on responsibility for one another when the mother or father are at work or when the older children are not present. They have a general interest which sustains them. That is often to be found in large families, although there is often an odd person out in a large family who feels that he or she must react adversely to the family's general interest.

In general terms, the different general pattern of present family life explains why the mechanisms that families produce are much less effective. The fewer the people who comprise the family, the greater the pressure will be. In a single-parent family—let us assume that the lone parent remains at home and is physically unable to deal with a growing adolescent—the parent may well find it impossibly wearing to keep on seeking to exercise control, and eventually will give in. The youngster will find it unappealing to stay all the time in the company of the single parent. He will go out and become more and more removed from the parent's control.

A second factor is that, by virtue of society's development, previously commonly held values have become less commonly held for all sorts of reasons—hanges in demography, more people moving around, changes in community life, the breakdown of communities and the mixing of different national and racial groups. It means that young people find it more difficult to establish the key values, search though they may, and be taught as well as they might. That makes the judgment of values difficult. One of the things that saddens me about Britain is that we do not have clear definitions of values. It has something to do with not having a written constitution, but it is not completely explained by that. Because our fundamental principles have always been unwritten, it is much harder to discover what they are. I have asked youngsters in this country what they regard as the fundamental values and principles. It is more difficult to obtain clear answers from our youngsters than from those in France, Sweden, the United States or even the Soviet Union. Elsewhere they have clearer statements of the principles of civic duty and responsibility.

The third general factor which I suggest often has an influence on young people is the lack of opportunity arid the feeling of alienation that can build up. The best example of that that I can cite is the failure of people to behave rationally if they have inadequate verbal skills. If one is able adequately to express oneself verbally, one needs less recourse to physical methods of expression. If someone is frustrated because he or she cannot win an argument and compete on the same terms as the other person, such a person resorts, as people do in even the best educated circles, to other methods.

Marriages often start on the road to breakdown when someone ceases to argue verbally and starts to argue physically. The man often exerts his strength over the woman. A pattern of violence is much easier to establish once the threshold into violence is first crossed.

A youngster, who is not a fool, was arrested near to where I live. I know him. He can usually express himself quite well. He was taken to Tower Bridge magistrates court. He came near to being given a custodial sentence for an assault on a policeman. The youngster had been stopped and questioning began. It developed by him reacting when the policeman sought to arrest him. That lad, who is now in his 20s and settled with a good job, regularly went around carrying a knife. He felt that when he came into conflict with authority he would be less able to cope verbally than other people. That was vividly exemplified in the magistrates court.

I remember thinking, as that lad stood in the dock wearing a leather jacket, looking like he always looked—in some ways surly and anti-authoritarian—that a similarly aged youngster who had had the benefit of an Eton education—to take a trite example, but I hope a helpful one—might have been able to explain how he had lapsed from normal behaviour. He would probably have got off with a much lighter sentence because of his ability to explain his behaviour and relate in a way understood by the person in authority. We can blame a great deal on television, which, although it teaches verbal skills in the sense that it exposes people to a range of views, does not allow the same communication because it feeds in always without giving anyone the chance to feed back. Whereas in past generations matters of dispute were a dialogue, they are now often a monologue to which people are not trained to respond other than simplistically. Many offences of violence are spontaneous. We should be aware that people become caught up in a series of events and react quickly and unthinkingly.

Many offences are induced by other factors. Alcohol is clearly one factor. I applaud the Minister and his colleagues for a little belatedly but none the less honestly seeking to deal with the drugs problem. It sometimes causes us to pay less attention to the alcohol problem, which is responsible for more violent crime than drugs. The Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act, enacted last Session, and possibly the drugs Bill proposed for this Session, will deal with these factors, but we must be aware that these pressures have been most harmful.

Another factor is the peer pressure, which suddenly induces someone who may never have committed an offence to behave like his peers when that appears to be the thing to do. The difference between a youngster and an older person is that normally youngsters do not think things through in the same way as older people. They do not have the skill to see where behaviour will lead them. The natural checks and balances that may, for example, inhibit us more than others from drinking and driving—the consequences for us are greater and include public vilification and greater inconvenience—do not work in the same way for someone who does not have a driving licence and who does not think through the social disadvantages of behaving in such a way.

There is a danger that youngsters seeking to be violent are seeking instant gratification. We all do it, and it is nearly always illusory. Stealing, robbing and acquiring other people's property is instant gratification. It is soon spent, passed on or no longer exists. The simple excitement of behaving energetically when life is boring and when often no energy is consumed by someone hanging around all the time explains why someone can get carried away by the excitement of the moment. Those are often single episodes.

A friend of mine is a senior worker at an assessment centre for young people in south London. I was seeking his advice and general comments this morning. He told me that he has someone in the centre who has been sentenced to three years' youth custody for an attack on an old man. It was an attack that went wrong and became a robbery. Someone with a clean record fell to the unjustifiable temptation of wanting to steal. He then behaved much more violently. There may have been a reaction or he may not have anticipated that the old man would not immediately give up the money. The offence became much more serious. He now regrets it, but it is too late.

Some violent crime can be explained by child abuse. Child abuse is reflected when the child becomes an adult. There was a debate in the House on the subject last week. Happily, our society is becoming more aware of the massive problem of child abuse. It is normally committed, not by strangers, but by family and close friends. This may be a topical week to say that we must alert the agencies of protection, such as social services, to ensure that they do the best job—in difficult circumstances, as we all accept. There is a great danger that the abused child will become the abusing parent. That is increasingly becoming the case. The child who is not given adequate parental care and teaching becomes an even more inadequate parent. I have seen that happen regularly as will many other hon. Members. It is depressing, because most children of inadequate parents end up in care and have a greater prospect of becoming inadequate parents themselves.

Some violent behaviour stems from genetic disorders and psychiatric illness, but that applies only to the minority of cases, and so we have to grapple with the social reasons for the majority of acts of violence and their consequences.

I have been driven to three general conclusions. First, in our educatioon we must seek to deal with most comprehensively with the need to establish that violence, particularly against others, is the most objectionable form of activity. We are right to criticise massive frauds in the City, automobile crime and theft from property. But there is a fundamental difference between those crimes and crimes of violence which affect the dignity and integrity of human beings.

Those who commit crimes of violence—in particular, young people—must be shown that violence is an unacceptable form of behaviour in any circumstances. Once they are permitted to be violent in the classroom or at home, violence becomes the norm, and that is very dangerous for society. Therefore, the education process must establish that violence is unacceptable, and youth workers, teachers and others must involve themselves in that process.

Teaching is very hard work in the difficult areas in our society, and teachers' efforts must be backed with additional social tuition facilities, so that good patterns of behaviour can be established, enabling people to renounce violence in their personal life.

There are three hon. Members in the Chamber this morning who, only a week ago, had personal experience of the second phenomenon that I am about to describe. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) and I were present at an International Youth Year parliament at the premises of the International Maritime Organisation on the other side of the river. I shall not go into the merits of the afternoon's controversial events, but they demonstrated that it is very difficult to establish in young people the principle of tolerant debate and understanding of others.

There is no easy explanation of the phenomenon of intolerance. We have to teach respect for other people's views, otherwise we shall find that we have lost the conventional ways of engaging in the normal social processes. When the norms are broken, violence of language leads to violent behaviour and intolerance of the individual, which is unacceptable however loathsome his views may be. Intolerance is now increasingly common, and we must learn to teach young people how to deal with it and how to renounce it.

Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying and I remember well the incident that he describes. However, I ask him to recall that this sort of violence is nothing new in society. It was taking place when I was young and long before that, and it is not unusual. The important question is how we cope with it.

Mr. Hughes

That is right.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith

Many of us have noticed that intolerance of other points of view in our universities seems to have grown in recent years.

Mr. Hughes

I am afraid that it is a problem that goes well beyond the category of young people. We have a duty, above all in this place, to teach by example. Many people cite this very building as a bad example to young people. It may be in part an excuse, but none the less we must be conscious of it, as must all people in public life. We cannot make the case that we would like to make if we do not subscribe to good standards in our own practice. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith said, there has always been intolerance in society in varying degrees.

My third conclusion is that violence often arises from the feeling that the other side does not understand. The tragedy of Britain today is that we are increasingly a society in which there appear to be two nations. There are places in Britain which in general terms can be defined as the more deprived areas, where people believe—often rightly, although not always—that they are not understood and valued equally.

If black youngsters know that statistically they are less likely than white youngsters to get employment, and have the feeling that they are not understood and that not enough is being done for them, they may think that the only way to be noticed is to assert their point of view, whatever the consequences for themselves. They are willing to challenge authority because that brings attention to them. All youngsters want attention. That is very important for them in establishing their identity. We must not allow them to feel discounted and discarded.

At a time of high unemployment, and when public sector expenditure is being restrained, we have a duty to ensure that our resources are directed towards overcoming the feeling of alienation and powerlessness which sometimes, when added to all the other adverse factors, prompts people, often in groups, to react violently. There will be other debates about how best to deal with the problem of violence, but the Government should always be seeking ways of giving youngsters less cause to feel that they are not being noticed and that the only way to he noticed is to be violent. We must also help them, as I have said, through the education process and other agencies in society, so that we can begin to resolve some of the problems, although ultimately they can be resolved only individually by every young person coming to the conclusion that he or she must renounce violence because it is fundamentally wrong.

10.27 am

Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton and Wallington)

I should like to endorse some of the very well made points of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). One that struck a particular chord was his observation that in our society today there is the fear of violence. There is the fear of the potential victim, and also, in a more subtle sense, the fear of those who might be tempted into violence and feel deeply ashamed subsequently. Obviously, the reality of violence must be dealt with most severely and effectively, but the fear of violence has also changed cur society for the worse.

I endorse the hon. Gentleman's point that violence is all too often the language of the inarticulate and the frustrated. We know that in our own lives. He gave the example of how family life can degenerate when people reach breaking point. It is obviously true also of football hooligans and of people who are bored, alienated and depressed, and, above all, of those who are more or less incapacitated by alcohol—another problem to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Clearly, one cannot be articulate when full of alcohol.

It was right for the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey to say that there is a qualitative difference between violence against property and violence against the person. I am sure that we all deplore violence against the person in any form. The hon. Gentleman was right to link that to the degenerative problem in our society where tolerance of free speech and other people's points of view seems to be decaying. None the less, the explanations coming from all quarters of society, intelligent and thoughful though they may be, are no more than explanations. They are a prelude to action, but they can never be excuses. I stress that point. Parliament and the Government should concentrate on solutions to these problems. There is a body of literature and talk on public platforms about explanations of the problem, but the bulk of our concern should be directed to solutions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) ably introduced the subject this morning. We all listened to him with great interest, particularly to what he said about the media and the impact of the modern mass media upon the problem. He has enormous experience as a former broadcaster and television journalist and he has followed the subject closely. The Home Office and Home Office Ministers would do well to study his remarks.

I should like to touch upon one or two definitional aspects of the problem. We should be worried when about one third of all known offenders in Britain are aged between 15 and 19 years of age. The peak age of criminality, according to the statistics that I have seen, is 15 for males and, incredibly, 14 for females. It should be of concern to the House and the country that those under 17 are disproportionately represented in the criminal statistics for burglary, theft and criminal damage. In 1984 about 36 per cent—more than a third—of those found guilty or cautioned for criminal damage, or what we would call vandalism, in England and Wales were under 17.

It is equally disturbing that young people seem to be more disposed to criminal activity than older people. From one pont of view, we should take comfort from that because perhaps it means that they will grow out of it. However, it is a shame that they have to go through it in the first place. More to the point, it is disturbing that the problem seems to have been getting worse rather than better and that the manifestations are becoming increasingly anti-social.

That leads me to consider briefly, and perhaps superficially, my own rendering of some of the causes. There are many different theories about the causes of crime and juvenile delinquency and, as I have already stressed and want to underline, none of the explanations, however compelling, can ever be considered to be an excuse.

When I talk aout the subject in my constituency and listen to the views of those who were brought up in the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s, they ask how can it be right, whatever the problems of social deprivation, for a generation of young people to react to deprivation and depression in a violent way when they did not. They may be romanticising slightly in the sense that they may not have the criminal statistics in front of them. We know that the criminal statistics and the police recording of crimes have improved and that has had an effect. Even allowing for those tricky scientific points, there is a generational difference, to which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey has already drawn our attention. That is important because it gives extra validity to the point that there can be explanations but never excuses.

When I was preparing for this debate, I came across a learned study by the Cambridge Institute of Criminology to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden has already referred. I spotted a succinct and helpful quotation from the study that sets out better than I could the heart of the matter when considering causes. The study considered in considerable detail a cohort of boys. The salient paragraph said: It was the boys from broken homes rather than those from intact homes, those from poor homes rather than affluent homes, those with unhealthy mothers rather than those with healthy mothers, and those born illegitimate rather than those born to married parents who were more likely to become juvenile delinquents. That seems to be a clear expression of the problem.

On the basis of some systematic work, the study later identified five key factors that were invariably present and were correlated with the existence of the problems of juvenile delinquency. Briefly the factors were: coming from a low income family; coming from a large family; having parents considered by social workers to have performed their child-rearing duties unsatisfactorily; having below average intelligence on standard testing; and having parents with a criminal record. I stress again that none of those factors, however scientifically arrived at, can be excuses, but they must be borne in mind as parts of the explanation.

There are other causes that are no doubt in the minds of many of my law-abiding constituents and I am sure that they would wish to include them if they were writing my speech. First, they would point out from a common sense angle that there has been a manifest lack of parental discipline in recent years. I have my own theory about the reasons for that. Since the House is not brimming over with speakers I shall elaborate on it.

There is a generation of parents who grew up in the years of depression and during the second world war. They had a fairly miserable time and life was difficult. From a human and rationing point of view, life was more difficult on the home front after the war than during it. When those people had children in the post-war period, even if they could not articulate it clearly, they decided that their children would not suffer in the material sense in the way that they had suffered. I am generalising, but that meant that we bred a generation of spoilt children. I am one of that generation—those who were born during the war or post-war period in the 1940s and 1950s. That generation of spoilt children are today's parents. They are the parents of the youngsters of eight, 10 or 12 who are committing many of the horrific acts about which people complain. Spoilt children often grow up to make the worst possible parents.

That is not a popular line and I will not receive any Brownie points for saying it, but I am convinced that it is part of a cyclical social phenomenon in our society. The problem is cyclical in the sense that it has a self-correcting element. I believe that today's children, those who have been allowed to get away with it because they were brought up by uncaring, insufficiently attentive parents or insufficiently disciplined parents, will realise the error of their experiences and when they become parents they are likely to be part of a swing back to a more traditional and disciplined approach. That is just a hypothesis, and only time will tell. However, I am sure that parental influence, for better or worse, is critical.

A second cause—lack of discipline in schools—was emphasised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey. It is much more difficult to exert traditional discipline in schools if one does not have support from parents and society. The two go together.

Thirdly, there is the malign influence of television and pornography. There is pornography in the sexual sense as well as the pornography of violence, which, in many ways, is infinitely more serious. There is more than anecdotal evidence that young and impressionable minds are turned to the bad by such influences.

My hon. Friend mentioned at great length and with great knowledge the problems that derive from television. I shall add one thought. It is commonly said by the defenders of the producers of programmes who put on violent series on television at times when children might be watching that if they moved away from that practice, it would not be acceptable, it would be an infringement of artistic freedom and so on. The clinching argument is usually, "Look at Shakespeare's plays. Look at his history plays. Look at the blood and thunder. Look at 'Hamlet'—virtually no one is left standing at the end." However, the difference is that when one goes to the opera or a play on stage, of course, one suspends one's disbelief to enter into the spirit of the thing, but there is at least part of one's mind that knows that it is just theatre. That is even true of the youngest children, who respond to Punch and Judy in the same way when Punch does the most awful things to Judy.

When people watch television, there is a great tendency for the mind—even the quite educated mind—not to be able to differentiate sufficiently clearly between the newsreel at 9 pm or 10 pm which, in the days when we could see it, showed South African police beating blacks over the head in Cape Town, and then, after the mild distraction of the weather, programmes such as "The Sweeney". It is all just yards of television; it is all moving wallpaper. It is difficult for the mind to differentiate between one sort of violence and another. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden rightly said, it inoculates people against the natural sense of shock and horror that they should have, which should turn them off but, if anything, makes them more prone to falling into bad ways.

The fourth factor, which has been mentioned by implication, is the lack of suitable facilities and outlets for young people. At a time when public spending seems to be viewed in a more pragmatic way than a short while ago, I urge Ministers to consider the case for sports facilities and supporting youth clubs, voluntary organisations and so on. Often, that is money well spent, and it can save society from having to spend much larger sums picking up the social consequences later on.

A fifth factor, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, is the vital factor of juvenile boredom and frustration. One cannot exaggerate the degree to which some of our young people are, tragically, bored witless by the quality and character of their daily life. That can breed frustration and malign social consequences. We should consider that seriously and not just pretend that the problem does not exist.

The final factor is the lack in modern society of virtuous adult examples for young people to follow. That may sound like a self-righteous point to make, but the fact is that there are not that many models of good behaviour in society any more. The things that get the publicity in the popular press and media tend to be sensational, trivial and even malevolent. For example, the models for young blacks in the inner cities are all too often not someone such as Daley Thompson who, on the whole, is an admirable character with great achievements to his name, but footballers, who shall be nameless, who spend much of the time thumping each other on the field when they should be scoring goals. The models might be pop stars who spend much of their time taking drugs and beating up the place when they should be singing good songs. I may be caricaturing slightly and being a little unfair, but I am trying to say that the importance of the adult example is very great and has been underestimated.

We are still living through a long teachers' strike, or what the teachers choose to call industrial action. I should prefer to call it industrial inaction and non-co-operation. It must be setting an appalling example to millions of young people in our schools. I wish that teachers would consider that aspect as well.

That brings me to my thoughts on some of the solutions to these grievous problems. If we try to be rational, when we seek solutions, we must look to a combination of prevention, detection and punishment. Those are the three major elements. As the excellent Cambridge study said, A rational preventive strategy, therefore, should include general provisions applicable to everyone (such as anti-theft devices, aids to detection, well-defined criminal laws and punishments and a reliable and trusted police force) as well as corrective treatment measures aimed at trying to change the chronically antisocial habits and attitudes of the small minority who create havoc out of proportion to their numbers. That is a fairly balanced statement of a fruitful general approach.

Prevention suggests, first, the need for better parenting. That is easily said and much more difficult to achieve. In some circumstances it is a heroic achievement for people to bring up children well against all the odds. The role of cash is important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden said. He alluded to the argument that many of the families from which the problem children come could avoid some of the problems that they have to face if they had more cash to do sensible and necessary things.

The Government have had a good record in the past on child benefit, which is very important, and I hope that they will pursue an enlightened policy with the introduction of family credit. However, I deliberately talked about child benefit in the past tense, because I am not paticularly happy at the way in which the Treasury seems to be following a policy of not uprating it in real terms or seeking to improve it, because all the evidence from knowledgeable quarters suggests that it is one of the most effective ways of helping families, particularly mothers who tend to be at the fulcrum of families and the most hard pressed.

Mr. Soley

Is the hon, Gentleman aware that the Treasury figures released the other day show that child benefit is now lower in real terms than it was in 1979?

Mr. Forman

I am aware of those figures. I have not read the written answer in Hansard, but I read the account in the Financial Times. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am concerned, and have expressed my concern already in certain quarters.

Better parenting is important, and money has a role to play. It will take a long time to turn round that problem to get things going right again, for the cyclical reasons that I described earlier.

Secondly, better teaching is important. One of the arguments for academic rigour and a more old-fashioned approach to what is taught in the classroom, whatever the subject, is that it teaches not only a disciplined way of thinking, which is the essence of good education, but, through that process, helps to teach the self-discipline which, in my view, must be, the basis of all good social discipline. I hope that our teacher training colleges and the general approach to teacher training will lead to the next generation of young teachers coming into the schools with a more traditional and, I hope, self-disciplined approach towards their subjects and their responsibilities.

The third category in prevention is a variety of general measures to diminish the temptations and opportunities for crime and delinquency. The police and Sir Kenneth Newman never tire of saying that the greater part of crime, particularly in the Metropolitan police area, is opportunist. It is not that people are deep-dyed, permanent, malevolent criminal personalities, but that opportunity is all too easily put in their way, and as they may be weak characters they succumb to that opportunity. Society has a social responsibility to diminish those opportunities.

That is why I was delighted to learn from the press recently that the Prime Minister will chair a seminar in the new year on the prevention of auto crime. It is not such a serious social crime as crime against the person, but it is important that it should not increase at its present alarming rate, not least because the youngsters who drive away a vehicle are often incompetent and dangerous drivers. They may be drunk or on drugs, and may knock down an innocent person. Indeed, in my constituency some postmen have been knocked down by precisely that sort of hooligan getting behind the wheel of a car. Clearly, preventive measures of a general character to diminish the temptations and opportunities for crime and delinquency are vital.

The improvement of detection suggests a need for more police. I hope that the Home Secretary will heed the cry from many quarters that the establishment levels should judiciously and in time be increased, especially in the metropolitan area, and for improved police techniques. It also suggests the need for better co-operation, which already exists in embryo, between police, schools and parents. I am delighted by the extent to which the police are now invited to most good schools to talk to the youngsters and establish a co-operative atmosphere between them and the young members of the public.

Above all, it suggests more social control and responsibility. Some Opposition Members may find that difficult to swallow. I am impressed by other societies which run on different traditions and values, such as Japan and China, both of which I visited. The natural sense of social control and responsibility throughout the community there, whether in rural or urban areas, is, broadly speaking, greater than it is in our country. There is less atomisation, anomie, and desire to walk by on the other side because it is not one's responsibility, and one does not wish to get involved.

Those aspects are all too characteristic of our modern society. We must reverse them so that responsible citizens regard the maintenance of law and order as their business, and not merely that of the police, social workers and other busy do-gooders. It must be everybody's business. Obviously, neighbourhood watch has a role to play, but I hope that the principle can be explored and extended.

Punishment also has a role to play. It is difficult to talk about, not least in relation to crimes of violence by young people because the public's natural instinct is to lunge for the rod, and to assume that the solution is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and to give the offender a taste of his own medicine. Those of us who have been educated at public schools, as I have, have personal experience of that which we need not go into.

More traditional practices should be adopted, especially by parents. I am not against a loving parent correcting in an immediate, firm and loving way his or her child when it steps out of line. Indeed, one sees that every day on the streets. I hope that that example, beginning with parents when children are at an early age, can be extended while children remain minors. Parents need to be bolstered in that they need to be held more clearly financially accountable for the misdemeanours of their children. That figured in legislation which the House passed not long ago, and I hope that that principle can be extended. We must bring home to parents the connection between their responsibilities and instances of their children's irresponsibility.

The courts also have an important role to play. At times they must give exemplary sentences to serious wrongdoers. To that extent, I must place on record the fact that many of my constituents have told me that they approved of the action taken by Judge Argyle in handing out a long sentence to a particularly vicious football hooligan for his deplorable behaviour. That cannot be the complete solution, but it must be part of the jigsaw. The courts do society and ordinary law-abiding people no service if they flinch from their responsibilities. It is important for the judiciary to realise that the public is constantly disappointed and confused when, if a jury has found a young villain guilty of heinous offences, usually against the person, the judge sums up using strong language, as if it were the worst thing since Genghis Khan, but then hands out some soft dopey little sentence. That leaves the public angry and confused. If the judge sees the matter in a serious light, it is important that this is reflected in the sentence.

Mr. Simon Hughes

The hon. Gentleman's remarks brought to my mind a case which highlights the matter. Often the mitigation of the offence is the deprivation of the community, and it applies equally to the victim. Usually there is a great sense of injustice when the sentence is so mitigated by the arguments and the reaction of the court that justice is not done either to society as a whole, or between the parties, one of which may have lost a relative, child or friend, and the other of which may live to fight another day.

Mr. Forman

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who puts the point well.

I hope that the House and the Government will constantly bear these problems in mind. I wish my hon. Friend the Minister well in the efforts of his Department to pursue co-ordinated policies which will have a positive impact on these serious social problems.

10·57 am

Mr. Chris Smith (Islington, South and Finsbury)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on his success in the ballot, and on selecting for debate a subject which is serious, crosses party political boundaries, and has so far prompted an hour and a half of debate remarkable for its sensitivity and the thoughts which hon. Members have brought to it.

I completely agree with much of the material in the hon. Gentleman's speech. However, I have some queries about the analysis of the role of television, and the impact that violence shown on television may have. There is some truth in the hon. Gentleman's assessment, but the matter may be more complicated than he led us to believe. Violence on television tends to become sanitised, presentable and acceptable. When violence is shown on the screen or the stage in gory detail, it can be shocking and instructive. It can be shown to be easy if it happens quickly, someone is killed and the camera immediately moves on to the next shot. For example, "The A Team", an extremely violent programme which I seldom watch but have occasionally caught, is watched by millions of youngsters. It has many violent scenes, but no one is ever killed or hurt. Therefore, the image portrayed is that violence is easy and that it is all right because, in the final analysis, there is no pain. We must distinguish a little more carefully among the ways in which violence is portrayed on television, the different sorts of violence, and the impact that it can have on television viewers.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith

I agree that television can sanitise violence. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that it has no ill effect on spectators?

Mr. Smith

Of course not. All that I am saying is that we should think a little more carefully about the precise impact of violence shown on television on youngsters and others who view it. I do not wish to make a party political point, but I believe that the way in which many Governments are learning to portray to their populations wars in which they are engaged has many similarities to the point that I am making about television. One can draw some conclusions from the way in which the British Government ensured that the details of the Falklands war were not shown night after night to the British people, but I shall leave that point there because I do not wish to go too far along that road.

The commission of violent crimes by young people is a great problem in the inner cities. However, we must get violence in perspective. Hon. Members have quoted from the D. J. West study "Delinquency: its roots, careers and prospects". One phrase from the study that struck me especially was this: Most juvenile offences are petty, disorganised, impulsive and generally unprofitable. Those four words encapsulate the broad mass of youth crime.

My constituents are worried about many different aspects of youth crime. They are worried about the gangs of youths who stand around on the staircases of blocks of council flats, not being violent but creating much fear in the residents of those blocks, who are frightened to walk past them to reach their flats. Such gangs cause a general sense of fear in the community. My constituents are also worried about the enormous amount of car theft and the high rate of burglary on council estates, much of it committed by youngsters. Many council estate tenants in my constituency are concerned about the extremely low clear-up rate for burglaries, for which the latest estimate is about 2 per cent. Those residents can have little confidence in the way in which society protects them from the impact of such crime.

When we consider violent crime committed by youngsters, we must set it in the context of the broad mass of crime and the threat of crime in which youngsters are involved. Violent crime is but part of the picture. We should not ignore the other parts.

Much has been said about the causes of crime, but less has been said about the way in which we should tackle it. I agree with the hon. Members for Wealden and for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) about the crucial importance of crime prevention. It is far better and more effective to prevent a crime than to run around after it has occurred trying to solve it and punish the offender. However, I criticise the conclusion of the hon. Member for Wealden, who believed that the Government's proposals for a review of social security might prove beneficial in this respect. I fear that it will prove far from beneficial, but again I do not wish to draw us into too much party political controversy.

What can we do to prevent crime, which is much more important than controlling criminals after the event? We can obtain some results in this area. I agree that we must attempt to control criminals after the event and that we need a good police force that enjoys the confidence of the community, that solves crime and that arrests criminals. We must also have courts and sentences, although I must question the benefit of custodial sentences on youngsters. Recidivism among those subjected to custodial sentences is amazingly and disturbingly high.

I accept that we must have a system of control, but I believe that we could make changes in crime prevention. First, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, we should try to remove the opportunities for crime. Simple measures would be needed, such as improved lighting to prevent people from loitering in dark corners. Doors could be strengthened to stop the all-too-common practice of their being booted in. We should close high-level links between blocks of council flats so that youngsters cannot run so easily from one to the other. We should provide entryphones and preferably some human intervention in blocks of flats so that residents need not rely only on a mechanical system that frequently breaks down and takes time to repair. We should stop making it easy for criminals to break into cars. One third of all recorded crime is the theft of, theft from or damage to motor vehicles or bicycles. It should not be beyond the wit of the Prime Minister and the motor manufacturers to introduce some reasonable and effective solutions when she holds her seminar early in the new year to try to tackle that problem.

A host of simple measures could be taken—I fear that all of them will cost money, which may make the Government reluctant to implement them—to assist in removing opportunities to commit crimes.

Education has a crucial role to play. I do not go completely along the road of bringing back discipline in the classroom which some Conservative Members have advocated. The role of education is to engage the interest of minds and develop the verbal skills, about which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke, of the children who go through the education process.

Sadly, at the moment the standards in our education system are low. The latest HMI report on school standards showed that only six education authorities out of well over 90 were providing an adequate standard of education. That must give us pause for thought. The Inner London education authority, which covers my constituency, receives no Government assistance for the provision of education in inner London. That must give us pause for thought when we consider the standards of education provided.

More support for the family is needed. Child benefit has already been rightly mentioned, and I applaud the comments made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington. Every objective analysis has shown that child benefit acts as an extremely beneficial mechanism for feeding extra money into the poorest family, which shows that it is not something that we can throw away lightly.

There are other aspects of support for the family, such as nursing provision, provision for the under-fives, and in particular assistance for one-parent families. Other measures must be undertaken in which local authorities and voluntary organisations, with support from the council, can do much.

I agree with what the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said about recreation facilities. We must ensure that young people have somewhere to go, something to do, something in which to engage themselves rather than hanging around with nothing to do and ample opportunity to commit crime. I must refer to the role of employment and training opportunities. The leisure hours that can be filled by recreation facilities are made even longer when all one's time is leisure and when there is no job available and nothing with which one can occupy oneself during the day. That makes a great impact on what young people decide to do.

Reference has already been made to the role of drugs and alcohol. The Minister has done much to try to raise the public consciousness of this and to address some of the problems that have arisen. I pay particular tribute to the support that he has given to the inner city "action on drugs" project in my constituency. It is concerned not just with the high profile drugs such as heroin but with the role of alcohol, the amount of tranquilliser taking which goes on, and other drugs that have an impact on people and families.

We need to ensure that our response as a community is not just one of cracking down on the drug pushers and dealers but of looking at the way in which drugs are distributed in the community, the impact that they have on individuals who take them, and the ways in which we can help people to avoid getting involved with drugs in the first place. We must also help them to come out of the habit once they are caught by it.

There is no substitute for good and supportive policing. I am thinking again of those gangs of youths gathering at the foot of blocks of run-down council estates. There is no substitute for good neighbourhood policing and regular patrols, preferably by police officers who know the young people involved, their families and the estate, and who are closely involved in the work of the community. If police were involved in, and accountable to, the local community in which they form a part, they would be seen as less of an alien force coming in from outside and therefore to be rejected rather than respected.

At the back of all of this, on any analysis of the differing roles of prevention and control and the response that society must have to crime, there is the desperate need for us all to be working to create a society in which people are less likely to offend. The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington spoke about the sense of anomie, the way in which communities have broken down. This deeply concerns me. I am too young to remember much of what happened in and immediately after the second world war, but speaking to people who know about it shows that there is definitely a feeling, particularly in the inner city areas, that the sense of community that was once the linchpin of many working class areas has withered away.

That has partly to do with geography and the nature of inner city areas, but it has much to do with the way in which our society has changed from one in which we depended on each other and lived our lives in the public arena of the streets and the landings of council blocks into one in which we focus upon ourselves. We have become a more individualistic society instead of a community-oriented society. That has profound political implications, and I do not want to go too deeply into it. However, major changes in the way in which people pursue the relationship between individuals and the community have occurred over the past 20 or 30 years. In turn, that has had an impact on the way in which young people grow up and their responses to the community.

We need to think about that development and as politicians and Governments we need to make sure that we are building a society in which people feel much more part of the community and are much less dependent upon themselves as individuals and as individual units within that society. That is crucially important, and I hope that if the debate does nothing else it will give the Minister something to think about. I apologise to him for the fact that I may have to miss part of what he has to say because I shall shortly have to leave the Chamber for a quarter of an hour. However, I hope that he will take back to his Cabinet colleagues some of the comments made in the debate and some of the genuine concerns that have been expressed. I hope that he will continue the work which he has already started in some sectors, and will address the problems and build a much better sense of community, with much better support for community provision than we have seen from many of his colleagues.

11·18 am

Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), not just on his motion, but, perhaps more important, on resisting the temptation that comes depressingly often to Conservative Members to suggest that to lock up everybody who commits an offence and throw away the key will produce the magical solution to crime. Neither he nor the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) spoke in simplistic terms, nor pretended that there is an easy punitive solution to the problem of crime.

Although the hon. Members said much with which I do not agree, since I put a different emphasis upon the problem, there is an area of common ground between us. The hon. Member for Wealden is to be congratulated on putting down this motion on crime. Given the Government's record on law and order and the disastrous consequences of their social and economic policies for law and order, a Conservative Member of Parliament must have courage to put down a motion of this kind.

We have had a "get tough" policy under this Government. Nobody can say that they did not do what they said they would do in 1979 and 1983. There are more people in prison in this country than in any other western European country—we are compared only with Turkey—yet the crime rate is increasing faster than ever before, and it is higher than ever before. There have been inner city riots of a nature, intensity and frequency that this country has not seen for 100 years. By any standard it is a serious political problem, and the Government have failed badly.

My first point is that we can do something about this problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said, a number of policies are already available to deal with it. The Prime Minister need not bother to hold her seminar in the new year. I can provide her with a document from the Labour Campaign for Criminal Justice. It is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, who has temporarily left the Chamber. I was its previous chairman. It has spelt out a long list of things that can be done. The all-party parliamentary group on penal affairs has also published a long report on crime and young people and what could be done about it, yet relatively few of its recommendations have been implemented.

Mr. Forman

The advantage of the Prime Minister taking this matter in hand in the new year is that there is a much better chance that Ministers at her level will be able to persuade the relevant company directors and those who take the technical decisions to get on with these changes. With the greatest respect to the groups to which the hon. Gentleman referred, there is a difference.

Mr. Soley

I do not dispute that point. I am glad that the Prime Minister has done this, although it is rather late. Much of the work has already been done for her, and she will not have to spend too much time on the seminar. My most important point, however, is that I do not think that the right hon. Lady will be very effective unless she also reverses the social and economic policies that are doing so much damage to the fabric of our society.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury pointed out that this is all about community structure. A crucial relationship in the high crime areas is the relationship between long-term youth unemployment and the collapse of the community. The reason why the crime rate in the 1930s did not go up as fast as it is rising now, although there was a great deal of unemployment then, was that the communities where unemployment bit very deeply were much more tightly knit and closely supportive.

That is no longer the case. The reason for that has nothing to do with this Government or any other Government. The reason is largely the geographical point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred, that people are moving out of the cities into the country. This means that people are trapped in the inner cities, unless one is referring to wealthy professional people who can afford to leave the inner cities when they wish to do so. The Government have aggravated the running down of community areas by pulling off the sticking plaster that was provided by high levels of public expenditure in key areas, and by creating long-term youth unemployment. It is that which has done the damage and brought about the breakdown of communities.

Because of the breakdown of communities, there is less confidence in the police. The police catch the majority of criminals by means of evidence that is given to them by the public. About 80 per cent. of arrests are based upon such evidence. If the relationship between the police and the public breaks down, as it has so badly in these key areas, the police are forced to use what I have described elsewhere as military style policing. They have to break into flats and houses to seek evidence, which often is not there. The Government must bear much of the responsibility for this breakdown. I am pleased that the Police Federation accepts to a greater degree than it used to do that the Government have it as a means of tackling the consequences of their failed social and economic policies, particularly in the inner city areas.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I agree entirely about the community, which has become a theme in this debate. Does the hon. Gentleman-agree that one of the ironies is that after every attempt that has been made to restructure local government there has been a breakdown of the traditional boundaries which people previously knew and accepted? In London there is no local tier of government. There are no parish councils or community councils in London, and they rarely exist in the urban areas, where there is most crime. In the rural areas where such councils have always existed there is the least crime. If we had concentrated on the important structures of government instead of trying to change the macro-governmental organisations, we might have done more to root our communities and support them. Instead, we have changed boundaries and released people from any sense of community belonging. There is now a sense of complete alienation in the inner cities.

Mr. Soley

This is not just a geographical problem. There is also a problem about the nature of the organisations. One of the reasons why the Labour party has been pushing so hard for democratic accountability of the police at local level is that one has to make people feel that the police are meeting their needs. If one looks at what people feel are the main causes of crime, one often finds that they do not coincide with what the police feel are the main causes of crime. There is a different perception of what the priorities ought to be.

I am pleased to see that even the Daily Mail's opinion polls—if I can quote the Daily Mail in support: of my case I must be in serious trouble—show that well over half of the population want more democratic accountability by the police, yet the Government still resist it. An attempt to bring people back into making decisions about the nature and the priorities of their communities would make so much difference.

I have spent far longer on that point than I intended. In a debate of this nature we need to remember what we did in our youth. Sometimes, the recollection is very painful. It is too easy to say that things are far worse now than they ever were. On many occasions in the past there was intolerance, violence and a rise in the crime rate. If one wanted to link rising crime rates with anything, I should link them closely with economic distress, combined with social instability. The two often go together and are to be found in other periods of history.

The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) referred a week or two ago to intolerance. However, the intolerance that is evident today is not nearly so bad as the intolerance that I experienced when 1 was at school in the 1950s. The Under-Secretary of State had a light, easy ride, compared with what I experienced recently at a public school, and compared with what I experienced in the 1950s when I was at school. People speak about intolerance in the universities, but what about the intolerance at universities in the past? What about the intolerance of the universities towards pacifists before world war one? What about the general intolerance of people at that level? We must be careful about applying these great, sweeping brush strokes to past generations.

The rise in crime is a problem. This country has tried to solve it by simplistic methods, particularly by locking people up and hoping that the problem will go away. The Government have been ably abetted by the press, which in its headlines complains about sex and violence, but then puts the titillating bits on the inside pages. I shall refer later to that. We need to think a little more carefully about our own background and experiences of life before we write off other generations.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred to the post-war generation of the 1950s. The chairman of the Tory Party, the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit), had terrible things to say about parents of that generation and about teachers. We cannot use parents or teachers as scapegoats. That is not on. The reason that it is not on is not least that we are again applying a general broad brush to the many complex issues that face this country. If we blame just the parents and the teachers we shall rightly earn their anger, and we shall do nothing to solve the problem. Whether or not one was spoiled, or whether or not one had the type of upbringing that was fairly common in the 1950s or in the 1970s, will not, of itself, be a cause of violence or crime. Other things will, and I shall touch on those in a moment.

Mr. Forman

There is a long wave in social developments and I was trying to identify the way in which that has influenced the problem. I readily agree that it cannot be the only explanation and that many millions of parents of that generation behave in an exemplary manner.

Mr. Soley

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but the dramatic increase in crime in recent years, particularly in the past five or six years, cannot be linked to the upbringing of that generation.

Let me say a little more to put juvenile crime, particularly violent crime, in perspective. I am talking only of juvenile crime, not the crime of all young people. That depends on how one defines "young". Only 8.6 per cent. of all juvenile crime is violent. Of that, about three quarters receives low sentences from the courts. In other words, courts consider, for whatever reason, that relatively low sentences are required. That is most frequently because the offences are not serious. They are usually the result of a fight that gets out of control

There is a fundamental difference in the way in which we treat the problem now. In 1955, an adult had 20 times more chance of being locked up than had a juvenile. Now, an adult has only twice as much chance. Britain has more juveniles locked up than any other Western country.

The daft short sharp shock experiment which the Government made such a great thing of in 1979 has produced younger, fitter, healthier, faster running, higher jumping criminals than ever before. The failure rate of detention centres is 71 per cent. At Send detention centre the reconviction rate is no different from before. At New Hall detention centre it is worse. When I debated the subject with a Conservative Member on television, he said that we should remember that a 71 per cent. reconviction rate is a 29 per cent. success rate. I give him full marks for blind loyalty, if for nothing else.

Youth custody has an 80 per cent. failure rate. The vast majority of young people grow out of their criminal activities. There is hardly a male in the country—and very few, if any, females—who grows up without committing an offence of some type. What matters is the one who goes on offending and who frequently gets caught. If a person is locked up for a long time, particularly a young person, he is being taught more than anything else how to live in an institution. If a person is taught how to live in an institution, he will go back to that institution frequently. It is the recidivist, the young person who quickly goes into detention centre, then youth custody, then prison, who will almost inevitably spend a lot of his life going in and out of institutions, be they prisons, hospitals or whatever. The present policy is disastrous and is creating a problem for future generations which the Government have only just begun to understand, although some of us have warned them about it for a long time.

We must look to more crime prevention. The hon. Member for Wealden had some relevant ideas about violence and crime, but when one looks at the background of people involved in violence it must be borne in mind that they have often experienced violence in their upbringing. The more violence there is in a person's upbringing, the more likely he is to be violent to his children. One of the key signs in a list of 10 or 12 symptoms of a parent who is likely to batter his children is that he himself was battered. People learn from their experience of adults close to them. Those who learn violent solutions to problems are likely to apply them. That is one reason why I am so strongly opposed to using violence to cope with violence. It rarely works in either the short or the long term.

We must look to more effective means of crime prevention. The family is mentioned in the motion. The all-party parliamentary group on penal affairs recommended the establishment of a Minister with responsibility for the family. I have much sympathy with that approach, although I would prefer a Minister with responsibility for children. A definition of a family is difficult and a Minister's role becomes blurred. We should concentrate on making sure that Departments of State and other institutions in Britain, both private and public, increase the chances of young people growing up to be able to cope with the demands of society—social, humanitarian, technical, educational and all the other demands that go with that.

If we are to do that seriously, we need someone who can look at the problems across the board. However, the problem does not stop there. Those who adopt the moral homily approach that parents should do better miss the point. To find someone who is likely to indulge in criminal behaviour does not simply mean looking for broken families or for families with a criminal background. That is only the first part of the problem. One must look for the family where there is inconsistency in discipline and a lack of love. Those two together are deadly. The absence of one can be bad, but the absence of the two together can often lead to trouble, although not always, because some young people do grow up in such situations and come out of them safely.

I recall one young lad who was on probation to me who, when he was caught lying by his mother, was clouted round the ear and told not to lie to her. Five minutes later, while he was still nursing his ear, the doorbell rang and the mother told his sister that it was the milkman or some such person, and that she should tell him that she was not in. A lot can be learnt from that. One can learn that lying is wrong, that it is right, or, more likely, that what matters is who one lies to, why one lies and what are the chances of getting away with it. That is one reason why families who feel trapped within their own family group or a small group of other people will be loyal to each other, even if at times it involves lying to all sorts of outside agencies trying to help them. That is part of the pattern. I warn people against doing the moral homily bit to families, parents or teachers in the way that the chairman of the Tory party did. At best it is a meaningless concept, and at worst it is insulting and ignores the real problem.

If young people have nothing to do, they are more likely to get into trouble. I am critical of the Government's lack of crime prevention, because they cut public expenditure and talk about throwing good money after bad in some bizarre way that is never described. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury made the point well. Caretakers in blocks of flats help to deter crime, and they also clear up graffiti.

The White City estate in my constituency has a major problem, but the design and structure of that estate is not essentially different from Dolphin square down the road from here. The difference is that the resources put into maintaining and developing the social structure and life in Dolphin square are infinitely greater than those for the White City estate in Hammersmith. Much the same parallel can be drawn with some of the new estates. I am not happy about some of the high rise estates, but, in some cases, if sufficient resources and thought are put into them, and if there is a good tenants' association and so on, they can be successful. As one architect said, they need a great deal of love, care and affection. If we let them run down, and if we do not provide adequate resources, it is clear that they will become a problem.

The provision of facilities for youth activities is especially important. Indeed, I can quote the Police Federation magazine in support of that. It is not the first time that it has supported me, but I am pleased to say that it is now doing so more frequently. It said: Cuts in local government spending have limited spending on youth facilities which (apart from being intrinsically good) Lord Scarman recognised as playing an important role in preventing crime.… it must also be of concern to the police that current pressures on local authorities to spend less public money is having a serious effect on the provision of facilities for the young … if the type of person who responds to the opportunities provided by such facilities is now going to be deprived of them, particularly in the difficult areas, the probability is that anti-social behaviour among the young will rise further. I entirely agree with that statement.

It is obvious that the Government should not cut the money available to provide youth facilities, especially in the inner cities. Conservative Members may try to kid us that the Government have poured money into those areas, but they ignore the fact that the Government have cut at least £43 million from the rate support grant—far greater than the amount that they have put into those areas—in the metropolitan London area alone, leaving aside such areas as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. Conservative Members must face the facts. The Government have made draconian cuts, which have had the devastating effect of pulling the sticking plaster off the inner city areas, causing even more damage to the inner city areas.

Mr. Simon Hughes

The hon. Gentleman knows that one problem is that the youth service has no statutory protection. While the budget is generally held safe for the education service, it is often the voluntary extras, as perceived in terms of statutory responsibility, that go. Does he agree that it would be of great benefit, across the whole realm of social provision, if there was some guarantee of funding for the youth service? That would at least enable the planning of some development of the service—something that cannot be done at the moment.

Mr. Soley

I am not unsympathetic to that view. There is certainly a need for long-term planning.

Education is crucial, and can be broken down into three parts—nursery education, schools and further education.

It has been mind-bogglingly stupid of the Government to cut funds to higher education. If someone is unemployed and attends night school to gain GCE qualifications, he now finds it much harder to obtain a place in university than it was a few years ago.

Mr. Nicholas Lyell (Mid-Bedfordshire)

rose—

Mr. Soley

I shall give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I ask him to hear me out on this point first, as that might save him some embarrassment later.

I left school early, with a great lack of academic achievement, by any standard. Eventually, I was able to go to university by attending a college and obtaining my GCEs. Even though they were at a relatively low grading, they allowed me to go to university. Today, however, young people with three A-levels—more than I had—perhaps two at grade B arid one at grade C, are being turned down by universities.

Mr. Lyell

I am graffiti for the fact that the hon. Gentleman has allowed me to intervene, although I have not yet been able to take a full part in the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the picture he is portraying is distorted? We should look not only at universities, but at polytechnics. The current statistics show that 13.8 per cent. of the relevant age group are capable of obtaining university places, which is the equal highest percentage ever. Partly because the relevant age group will decline in proportion, and partly for other reasons, betwen now and the early 1990s the percentage will rise to more than 15.6 per cent. Because the hon. Gentleman is referring to universities alone, he is giving a distorted view of the picture.

Mr. Soley

The hon. and learned Gentleman must have been wheeled out of the Library by the Government Whips. He grabbed the first statistics that came to hand in the hope that they might be useful. He knows better than anyone else that the funding for higher education has gone down. He also knows that that funding is lower than it is in comparable countries. He knows that youth unemployment is a major problem—partly because these young people cannot go to colleges and universities outside a very limited, defined period. To try to pretend that by putting a little more money into one area of higher education is an answer to the problem is to fool himself and all those young people who would like to do more with their lives.

Another aspect of education is very important—the problem in the classroom. If we undervalue our teachers, we cannot expect a good education system. We all know that the British teacher is paid far less, and their status is far lower, than that of teachers in comparable countries. That is a problem, and sooner or later the Government will have to face it.

When considering the relationship between schools and crime, we must acknowledge that the main problem is not behaviour in the classroom, but truancy. If the young person is not in the classroom, he is more likely to get into trouble. The link between truancy and crime is strong.

Mr. Forman

What is the answer?

Mr. Soley

More funds should be put into teacher training and the teaching profession. If we try to skimp on that, there will be problems not only with the general technological change in the economic structure of this country, but in the social environment, such as crime and social behaviour. I should like schools to consider teaching other subjects, such as inter-personal relationships. We could do more to teach youngsters about that. However, we cannot do that until the teaching profession is given more resources.

Mr. Forman

The hon. Gentleman referred to the vital point of truancy, which is integral to the problems. Is it not possible for teachers, regardless of whether they are adequately paid, to keep registers of those students who are supposed to be in their classes and, if they are not, to make suitable inquiries?

Mr. Soley

Of course it is. That is not the point. The hon. Gentleman, like many of his hon. Friends, does not understand the demoralising effects on the teaching profession of being told, over a number of years, "You are not highly valued in this country." Quite frankly, that message has been around for many years, not simply since this Government took power. However, the problems have become dramatically worse because of the Government's policies.

The chairman of the Tory party has put the blame for crime on teachers, among others. If we try to devalue an important profession, while comparable countries place a much higher value on teachers, we cannot expect them to do the job as well as they could do. Demoralisation might be difficult to measure, but we all know that it exists. The teachers certainly know that it exists.

Nursery education is vital. I do not have time to say much more about that, but we should provide many more nursery places throughout the country.

Another important aspect of the general problem of crime among the young is housing. I shall not spend too much time on that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury has already referred to some of the things that we should do. We should give much greater priority to moving families with young children out of high-rise flats. Parents with young children, especially single parents, living in high-rise flats must either have the children playing in the flat all day long or must allow them to play downstairs, outside, and usually unsupervised.

The various play facilities have been reduced because of the Government's cuts in public expenditure, so those children literally have to play outside without supervision. If there are no longer caretakers, park keepers and toilet attendants, who previously acted as a deterrent to bad behaviour, we cannot be surprised if those children drift into vandalism and daubing graffiti.

As we have been told, the fear of crime is greater than the reality of it. Part of the reason for that is that decaying, rundown areas are not cleaned up because of the cuts that the Government have made, and that makes the problem worse. Another part of the problem is the media, and I shall return to that later.

Alcohol is a major factor in crime. So many studies have been done, and so many statistics have been published on the subject, that it is unnecessary to quote them. Nearly all the figures reveal that about 40 per cent. of all offences brought before inner city courts are linked to drink. In homicide cases, about 50 per cent. of murderers or victims have been drinking. Drinking is common in battered baby cases, immediately prior to the battering, and it is common in many casual offences, particularly violence.

The British crime survey shows that the person most at risk is not the elderly lady or man living or walking alone, but the young male out on the streets late at night. He is the typical victim of crime. One can hear that from the police at any time, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights at closing time. That is where the problem lies.

What are the Government doing about it? They keep offering platitudes, such as, "It is a problem and we must do something about it," but they do nothing. I was chairman of the Alcohol Education Centre, which, with a couple of other bodies, was merged into one organisation entitled Alcohol Concern. I made no complaint about that at the time because it seemed the right move to make. However, what worried me—and, tragically, what came true—was that Alcohol Concern would receive less funds in real terms than the other three or four organisations received together. That proved to be so in 1980. How can that be desirable?

The alcohol industry spends millions of pounds on advertising. It produces an enormous quantity of a powerful drug which we accept and know is a drug. The social consequences of that are enormous, yet the percentage that we spend on prevention, rehabilitation and cure is tiny. Unless this or a future Government have a proper policy on alcohol, it will remain a major problem in crime.

A good scheme was introduced by the Government—I give the Conservatives credit where it is due—to enable police officers to caution a drunk defendant and then take him to a rehabilitation centre. Only recently we read in the newspapers that two rehabilitation centres had been closed.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor)

The hon. Gentleman must not gild the lily. I am not sure what he means by "rehabilitation centres". Is he referring to wet shelters where people can stay overnight? If in the hon. Gentleman's view staying overnight is rehabilitation, he should consult a dictionary.

Mr. Soley

The Minister cannot cope with the stress of criticism.

Mr. Mellor

Answer my question, rather than making silly remarks.

Mr. Soley

The hon. Gentleman was right to correct me. Perhaps I should have referred to them as detoxification centres. Two of them have been closed, and the Minister does not deny that.

I recall telling the Minister at an all-party meeting upstairs that the danger of the scheme he was introducing was that if there were only wet shelters—that is, places where people could go overnight—we should have a revolving door. The police would simply take a person to the police station, take him into a wet centre where he would stay overnight—if there were only unskilled personnel there, that could be dangerous for the personnel—and the next day he would be out on the streets again, with the cycle repeated time and again.

The only way to deal with the problem—at the time the Minister agreed with me—is to have permanent staff, suitably qualified, to handle cases brought to them by the police. That has not happened. The Government have failed to deliver, and if the Minister wishes to intervene on that, I shall willingly give way.

Mr. Mellor

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's recognition that overnight shelters are not rehabilitative. The figures on which we had to take a decision about cost effectiveness—in relation to the rate of occupancy of beds and so on—show why we took the decision that was finally taken.

The hon. Gentleman appears to have a blithe optimism about all this. He seems to assume, for example, that provided enough of the right people are available, the problems of chronic alcoholism must be susceptible to treatment, when he knows that there is no evidence to that effect.

We hear a constant and incessant parade of statistics and allegations about public expenditure. His right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) has already committed the next Labour Government, should we ever have one, to £50 billion of additional expenditure. I do not know at how much the hon. Gentleman would cost his alcohol proposals, but has he given any thought to whether the community could afford them? Has he considered the consequences on jobs and prosperity in the community?

Mr. Soley

I have given much thought to the subject, possibly more thought than the Minister has. The hon. Gentleman agreed when we discussed this issue a couple of years ago that the expense of continuing as we are is too high. I agree that there is the problem of the initial capital cost. That is why the Minister should consider the amount that is paid by the alcohol industry. One of my suggestions was a tax of perhaps only 1 per cent. on the advertising of alcoholic drinks. That would pay for virtually all the proposals that I have made.

If the Minister wishes to interrupt again to tell me that such a step would not be possible, or that the Government do not wish to take it, he must tell the British people that he is content to see the alcohol rate rising, with more and more vagrant alcoholics staying on the streets. Is he prepared to say that? What is the cost of that to the community, and what does he propose to do to stop it? Or will he simply sit back and say that nothing can be done which is what he seems to be saying?

If a single act on the part of the Government has done more than any other act to produce crime, it is their board and lodging allowance proposals. It is clear from Home Office figures that the link between crime and homelessness is strong, yet their proposals will create homelessness. Yesterday, I was lobbied by the unemployed workers centre in Hammersmith. Among those who came to see me was a man aged about 25 who had been sleeping on the floor of that centre. He had been a paratrooper in the Falklands and had fought at Goose Green. He told me his story, and when I told him that I was thinking of mentioning it in this debate he was happy for me to do so and added that I was at liberty to use his name. I shall not do that, because it would not be helpful to him.

He told me, in effect, "I cannot take much more. I have been trained, and I know, how to kill. I get so angry at times that I turn to drink or drugs, but I do not want to do that any longer." He is now attending a project in Hammersmith, which, I hope, will help him. The point of his story was that he had nowhere to go.

The Department of Health and Social Security supplementary benefit office in my constituency was smashed up recently. It had to close for a day and a half because of that. As a result, many people could not get money and gravitated to the unemployed workers centre. That is another indication of the stress that exists in the population. Staff at supplementary benefit centres are asking for security guards. After intervention by me, my local office now has two security guards. Such requests are becoming commonplace.

When speaking to people such as my ex-paratrooper, one gets the feeling that one is talking to ordinary, capable people from decent backgrounds who have become trapped by a failed social and economic policy. They may comprise only a minority of the population, but it is a minority who matter.

I accept that the majority of British people are becoming better off. If they are doing so at the expense of that minority, and if those who are getting better off do not contribute sufficient resources to protect that minority, we shall be storing up appalling problems for ourselves.

The influence of television may not be as important as it is sometimes made out, but I am open to argument and to be dissuaded from taking that view. I recognise that it may be a problem. However, the press, especially the local press, increases the fear of crime. The press reports crime far more often than crime is committed. Camden produced a good survey which showed that to be so.

There was a classic example in my constituency. A number of elderly people were worried about the three murders about which they had heard. In fact, one murder was reported under headlines in the same local paper on three occasions, once when the crime was committed, once when the offender was caught and once when he was sentenced. The way in which the press plays up crime is important. Newspapers such as The Sun, the Daily Mail and others of that nature use sex and violence to sell copies, while condemning the rise in the number of crimes committed, and sexual aggression. They are like the drug peddler who accuses the drug addict of being a wicked person. They are guilty of double standards of the worst sort. I know that the hon. Member for Wealden is sympathetic to that view.

I tabled a question recently to ask whether the Minister would refer the Howard League report on unlawful sex to his Department with a view to making recommendations on changes in the law. I received a one-word answer, which was no. I ask the Minister to reconsider that answer. Many intelligent and able people spent a great deal of time and expended much energy through the Howard League considering the problems of unlawful sex and the background to it. I was one of the speakers at its conference. I understand that someone from the Conservative party addressed the conference in my absence before I spoke. It is important that we receive a better answer from the Minister than we have had so far.

When we discuss crime, we often talk about the availability of weapons. With a number of my colleagues, I saw the Home Office Minister with responsibilities for the police some months ago. We asked for a clampdown on the availability of guns, replica guns and knives. It is absurd that we do not allow young people to enter betting shops because we consider them in some way to be immoral, while we are happy to have shops displaying guns, replica guns and knives for everyone to see and purchase, subject to certain conditions, which are not especially stringent.

When my colleagues and I saw the Minister, I recommended that the Home Office should set up a standing committee to make recommendations to the Minister about the type of guns, replica guns and knives that should be available for sale, the conditions that should be imposed on their use and the way in which they should be kept. Sadly, the Government turned down that recommendation. That did not surprise me. They talk about crime as if the only way to respond to it is by kicking people into submission. That is not the answer. The problem of crime raises sophisticated and complicated issues. If we try to deal with it by introducing simplistic and punitive measures, we shall not solve it. Our failure to do so will be at great cost to all our constituents.

12.4 pm

Mr. Nicholas Lyell (Mid-Bedfordshire)

I am glad to be able to contribute to the debate immediatley after the ion. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), who has great knowledge of the subject. I shall make one point, emphasise it and then move on to other issues.

Violent crime worries people, and the public should know that anyone who is convicted of mugging on the streets can reasonably expect to receive an immediate custodial sentence. That is what the public would expect and that is what should happen. In fact, that is what happens in the courts, and the Lord Chief Justice has made it clear that that is right. The public should look to the courts for protection and they should be confident that it will be forthcoming.

The thoughtful motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) makes the point that the problem of crime among young people is a problem for us all. We cannot stand back and expect the police alone to deal with it. If that argument needs any emphasis, it must come from police numbers. The Government have an excellent record on increasing police manpower. There are 13,000 more police active and on the streets now than in 1979. We now have 156,000 officers, but they have to police 56 million people. That means that there is one policeman for about 400 citizens. It would be sheer folly to regard the prevention of crime as a matter for the police alone. As the motion says, it is a matter for the family, for the schools and for us all as citizens in our neighbourhoods. It is a matter also for sophistication and deep thought.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden and others that education must start at the youngest age. If a child receives a good start before school, he or she will do well at school. We should encourage nursery education and, above all, the tremendous value which comes from mother and toddler clubs and pre-school playgroups. The value of such organisations can hardly be overestimated. The teachers can assist the child and involve the mother. The mother will be taught how to teach her child, boy or girl, when he or she is at home. To some extent, a social outlet is provided for the mother. It must be recognised that bringing up young children is a tough and often lonely job in which skill and help are needed.

I can give an illustration from my constituency. In Bedfordshire, we are lucky enough to have a pre-school playgroup association that is flourishing throughout the county. At any one time it is assisting no fewer than 8,000 children. That means that 8,000 families and about 8,000 mothers at any one time are learning how to bring up their children and to develop them. This means that children are given a good start. If a child is given a good start in school, he or she is likely to make progress.

I speak with some personal knowledge because I lived for 10 years in Lambeth. Railton road, the front-line Mayall road and other roads which were so much in our minds at the time of the first Brixton riots in 1981 were places where I shopped frequently. My wife is an infant and junior school teacher and she taught for many years in Lambeth. She often had 45 pupils in her class, among whom there was often a high proportion of young West Indian Lambethians. There can be no doubt that many of them must have been of the age to have been involved in the riots, about 13 years after my wife had been teaching in the area.

The help and guidance that the schools can give and the clear standards that they inculcate, in co-operation with the parents, are factors of infinite value. I am sure that that view will receive support on both sides of the House. The value of that approach continues through the age scale.

Truancy is a real problem. Although our intentions are good, we often blind ourselves by the nomenclature that is attached to those who are involved in preventing or controlling truancy. The term "education welfare officer" does not give a clear picture to the child of the function of that person. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, speaking eloquently from the Opposition Front Bench, rightly observed that truancy and the incidence of crime in an area are intensely closely linked. He will remember, as I remember, that about 10 years ago the police carried out what were called truancy trawls in a number of parts of London. In one instance they carried out trawls over a fortnight and the volume of reported crime dropped by 30 per cent. The police were going around the streets, finding young people of school age who were wandering about and asking them why they were not at school and they were taking them in. The fact was then, and it remains so, that the police were doing something that they had no power to do. Truancy by a child is not an offence. The only offence is committed by the parent who does not send the child to school.

I draw my hon. Friend's attention to an idea that comes from across the Atlantic. In some states there is a statutory obligation on a parent whose child truants, when summoned by the head teacher to whom the truancy is reported by the police, to go at once to the school and explain the circumstances. That applies whether the parent is at home or at work, perhaps busy on a lathe or writing an important report. It applies to the father or the mother. If they do not go at once, they can be fined. That requirement has a beneficial effect upon the parents. It brings home to them immediately and tangibly their responsibility to ensure that their children are at school. It had a significant and beneficial effect on truancy levels. I recommend that we should consider that suggestion here. It would have no effect upon the parent who takes care, but it would bring home to the lax and uncaring parent his or her duty.

I shall develop what I thought were unfair points about higher education made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith. He and his colleagues always make unwise and, in a sense, blinkered points about money. If one believes that the problem can be tackled only by throwing at it money that the country cannot afford, one is failing to consider the correct solution.

My hon. Friend the Minister has correctly pointed out that the policies that the Labour Front Bench has put forward would cost about £50 billion. We all know that if a Labour Government were returned to office they would never implement even one third of their policies because they would not be able to find the money. After a few years, when they had implemented some of them—probably not the correct ones—they would go back to the International Monetary Fund. However, I do not want to get too caught up in that debate.

I wish to return to the practical things which can be done without spending excessive sums of money. It is not true to say that the problem of violent juvenile crime comes from young people who can get two Bs and a C in their A levels and who may or may not find a position on a particular course at a particular university. I am surprised to hear that anyone who obtains two Bs and a C cannot find a place in a university. I accept that they may not find a place on a course and at a university that they want. I believe that they would find a worthwhile course somewhere else which would benefit them. The word "university" does not have a special magic.

I hope that the chairman of ICI will not mind if I quote what he said. He is not a Conservative, but he is worthy of respect. He pointed out that in some respects there were too many universities but too few centres of excellence. Excellence and high standards are crucial to this debate, whether we talk about nursery or higher education. As high a proportion of the relevant age group as has ever been able to enjoy higher education can do so today. I am not saying that I should not like the proportion to be even higher, but that remains the fact and it should not be gainsaid.

I wish to deal with some of the practical things that can be done without enormous cost. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to give sympathetic consideration to them even when there are pressures on funds—and pressures on funds there are. One was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hammersmith. It leads me to the subject of out-of-school provision. I am vice president of a body known as the National Out-of-School Alliance. It deals with latchkey children. I became involved with the problem of latchkey children because when I lived in Lambeth there were children who roamed the streets with nowhere to go between leaving school at 3.30 pm and 6 pm when their parents returned from work. Comparatively small sums of money can help to provide them with sensible things to do on school premises or in public halls and playgrounds.

Those matters are relevant not just to inner city areas such as Lambeth, of which I have experience; they are relevant to large parts of the new towns. I remember that from when I represented Hemel Hempstead. It is also relevant to portions of my constituency, whether it be Kempstown or Biggleswade where many children would benefit from out-of-school provision while their parents were at work. The amount of money needed to organise such provision is often catalyst money. It is often a matter of persuading a local authority, with its beleagured funds—if they be beleagured—that this is a high, sensible and cost-effective priority.

I wish to discuss how one deals with and assists the young person who has often transgressed and come before the courts on many occasions. The key to the solution is to try to bring them back into the mainstream of life and, above all, to try to get them into work and give them the opportunity to meet "Miss Right"—the girl in their life—and to settle down and have a family. Thank heavens, that is what most of them ultimately do.

Many young people who transgress and go into the youth custody centres, as borstals are now called, have had a barren existence. I shall describe just how barren that existence can be. However, they can be brought back into the mainstream and taught how to obtain a job, help themselves, and return to the type of life that most of us hope to enjoy.

My involvement in such matters arises from the fact that I sit for 20 days a year as a recorder. I am therefore faced with the problem of sentencing young people. As a result of the training properly provided for recorders and magistrates, and my interest, I have visited a number of those institutions. I commend three, in different tiers, as models of the way in which we should approach the problem. The three that I commend are Sherborne house, the Burnbake Trust, where I am on the committee of management, and Project Full Employ. Sherborne house is in Southwark. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) is not in the Chamber, but he will know it. I wish to explain what they do and the valuable assistance that they provide.

Sherborne house is an institution to which one goes as one of the conditions of a probation order. Under a probation order, pursuant to the provisions which the Government provided or expanded in the Criminal Justice Act 1982, magistrates or the Crown court can make it a condition of the order that someone should attend for up to 60 days at a specified place for instruction. They must do what they are asked to do by those who are in charge.

Sherborne house caters for people who have drifted into the alternative society or sub-culture where no one gets up in the morning because there is nothing to do. It provides them with training. It helps them to find a useful skill. That does not just mean bricklaying, although that is a useful skill; it includes carpentry, joinery, photography and a number of other technical skills. An outlet is provided. Life is often boring. Someone aged 16, 17 or 18 needs an opportunity to obtain self-confidence. To take young people out of themselves, even for a weekend, as part of their probation, getting them to the hills of Cumbria or Wales, providing them with a challenge and giving them a sense of self-confidence and self-respect enables them to hold up their heads among those whom they will meet. It shows them that there is more in life than the activities which have so often led them into crime. Those ideas are fostered by the Burnbake Trust, which is based in Southwark and at Wilton in Wiltshire, because it applies to rural as well as to city areas. It helps to provide training and a lead into work.

Similar help is provided by Project Full Employ. The ethos is the mainstream ethos that we all have to recognise if we are to live full and worthwhile lives. It is the ethos of getting up in the mornings. Project Full Employ sets out to find those who are most disadvantaged in our society. A large proportion of the 1,000 or so young people whom it helps every year are black. Almost exclusively they have never had a job, or never held down a job for more than a few days or weeks, and they are nearly always heavily under-educated. They have come through 11 years of the education system and gained all too little from it.

There is nothing remarkable about what is provided for them. They are given office training of the kind that Pitman's provided. The first Project Full Employ institution was behind the Royal Exchange in the City. The young people had to get up early to start their training by 9 am, properly dressed. For 13 weeks they were taught office skills. At the end of the 13 weeks the project could reasonably expect to place in mainstream employment 70 per cent. of those for whom there had hitherto been no hope, putting them on their way. That is the kind of practical approach, funded partly by charity and partly by Government assistance, which is so valuable in this area.

The community programme has an important part to play, and I will give a final example from my own constituency. In helping people back into the mainstream, we are talking particularly about helping young people to find employment. It shows them that they can be employed. It shows others who might employ them outside a Government programme that they are willing to get off their backsides and work, if only they are given the opportunity.

The National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders runs excellent schemes for about 200 people all over Bedfordshire. The work that they do is often simple, such as removing the concrete from the jungle of back gardens of those who live in rather poor quality council houses. That is of value to the people who live there and also to those who do the work. It can be constructive in other respects.

I visited two houses which had been rehabilitated. They were empty large, old-fashioned, council houses, not particularly convenient unless occupied by a large family. They had been burnt out at a result of vandalism. The first of them has been rehabilitated to provide a youth club for the local neighbourhood. The youth club is run by the youth of the neighbourhood and by nobody else. Perhaps I should not say that it is going like a house on fire, but large numbers of people come to it. It is entirely self-organised. There is a pool table, and it provides a real outlet for those who, in that poor quarter, have no other outlet. It has all been done by severely disadvantaged people.

Government schemes, charitable funding and local authority initiative can all come together to provide help for the young offender. It can help those who have transgressed to get back into the mainstream and into the life that we would all wish them to enjoy.

12.24 pm

Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting)

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, and I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) on initiating it. I am sure that we would all readily agree with the words of the motion. Whatever part of the country we represent, we know from the many letters we receive of the increasingly deep concern of people of all ages—especially the elderly in my constituency—about the growing violence in society, in which so many young people are often involved. The problem exists all over the country and there are no easy answers for its solution.

We and the general public would be very foolish if we thought that the Government could introduce a new law so that within a few months the problem would be solved. I accept that we all have a role to play. Parents in particular have a major role to play. In our day-to-day involvement in our constituencies we meet parents and we know that many decent, honourable and hard-working parents have real problems to face within their family circle.

Whether we like it or not, the attitudes of young people have changed enormously. There may be an age difference of 20 years or less between parents and their children, and the difference in attitudes is often amazing. For example, many young people see nothing basically wrong with drug taking, which we regard as wrong. They say that it is something they do within the circle of their friends, that they are not causing problems for anyone else, and that they should be allowed to do it.

I warmly congratulate the Government on the action that they have started to take on drugs. It may be somewhat late in the day; nevertheless, a start has been made and that is to be welcomed. The sooner the courts take action on the menace of drugs in our society, the better it will be for all of us.

I represent one of the inner city areas of London. The hon. and learned Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell) mentioned the kinds of problem with which he has to contend in his constituency, which, although not far from London, is not in the London area. The problems that we are discussing today have been experienced by many of us in all parts of the country. Those of us from the inner cities have more of the problems than other hon. Members.

Today, the public do not want to see what they describe as a political dogfight between the Government and the Opposition, because we are debating a serious issue. Unfortunately, the Government do not always take the action that could be helpful in trying to overcome the issues that we are talking about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) mentioned board and lodging allowances. We have had some rough debates on that subject. I spoke on it about a year ago. Board and lodging allowances still present real problems as many young people move around the country because they are unable to find employment. In some parts of the country board and lodging allowances have been abused, but I do not believe that we needed nationwide action to resolve the minor abuses that have taken place. When we speak to young people about board and lodging allowances, they say that the Government are hostile towards them.

There have been comments about unemployment. It is a sad fact, and we would be fools to run away from it, that young people genuinely do not believe that the Government are doing all they can to help create employment. We need only to go to a local school—I am sure many of us do—and chat to young people about the issues of the day and what concerns them and we find that top of the list is employment. They ask about their employment prospects. Sadly many of them see no hope at all. They believe that the Government are not showing much concern about the problems that they will have to live with when they leave school.

Another issue that is of concern to young people and the organisations that seek to help them, certainly in the inner cities, is local community projects. In my area of Tooting, in Wandsworth I find such problems. Many organisations there cater for a wide range of youngsters, both black and white, some in employment but many unemployed. Those organisations look to the Government to give them some security for the future. Last Session we spent a great deal of time talking about the abolition of the Greater London council. We have heard many accusations about how the GLC spends its money. However, in the GLC area many of the worthwhile projects came into being only because of GLC funding and still exist only because of that funding.

I am sure that many hon. Members, whether they are members of the Government or of the Opposition, know from the approaches that are being made to them that when the GLC is abolished many of the local organisations that have a role to play and are respected by young people and their parents will be concerned about their future at the end of 1986. Most of them can tick over into the early part of 1986, but many of them wonder whether they will still exist by the end of the year.

Over the next few weeks the Government must say that they will look sympathetically at projects that have a proven record of help to young people in a community. The problem is much wider than that, but today we are specifically talking about young people. The Government must show those organisations that their projects will receive support. It is no good for the House to talk about the problems that young people create when young people are saying that the projects that provide services and facilities that they can make use of no longer exist, because the Government, in co-operation with the local authorities, will no longer help to fund them. That is the problem.

Many local organisations in my area want help as they start to become established because of the cost of purchasing and refurbishing premises, supplying equipment and so on—all very expensive. However, if they do not get that help initially, unfortunately they do not get off the ground. I cannot stress too strongly how important that is.

Last Session we spent a great deal of time on rate capping. Opposition Members will never have the same point of view as the Government on rate capping. I served in local government before I came here, and I believe that it is the responsibility of the local authority to decide how it spends its money. Many people might not like that, but when the council elections come up those people have the choice of saying,"We do not believe that the authority has spent our money wisely, which we paid in taxes and rates, and therefore we do not support it." If parties announce their policies to the electorate, the Government should not say, "You may say that, but no way will you do it because we shall stop the funding that we could give you to allow such projects to get under way." All those things are incorporated in this overall issue.

This morning I was in Wormwood Scrubs prison, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith. In virtually every prison in the United Kingdom, there are increasing numbers of young people. I do not have the statistics for the breakdown of age, but perhaps the Minister does. It is not difficult to find out the reasons why the young people have been sent there. Many of them have been charged and found guilty of the most atrocious crimes of violence. Many of our prisons are overcrowded, and we have the problem of the closure of prison workshops. We often hear that men are locked up for 23 hours a day, and if workshops are closed more men will be locked up for longer each day. I cannot believe that that does not add to the bitterness felt by people who are already unhappy with their lot in our society. That matter has to be considered. It is no good saying, "This youngster has offended against the rules of our society, and we shall send him away," and then sending the youngster to prison under the present conditions.

My constituency, as well as the Minister's, is in the London borough of Wandsworth. We are both members of the Wandsworth police consultative committee. At the meeting last month a request was made to the three hon. Members with constituencies in Wandsworth to approach the Home Office and ask for more funding, which would allow for more police officers to be made available in the borough. I am sure that it is not only our police committee that is making such a request. We know from the many letters that we receive that the general public want more policemen on our streets. I wrote to the Home Secretary informing him of my support of the police committee's views and saying that it asked me to write to him. The members of the committee and I will await the response with interest. If funding is made available so that we have more policemen on our streets, that will be welcomed by our constituents. I am certain that more policemen on the streets will deter much of the unfortunate violence. it is no good the Home Office expressing deep concern at the violence if at the same time it does not do what I and many people believe is necessary—ensure that more policemen are seen.

Ministers and Conservative Back Bench Members often tell us that the Government have put more funding into the police and that we have more police officers than X number of years ago. That may be true, but society's demands on the police force are greater. It is no good having an approved ratio of police officers for a division, and when the division arrives at that figure to refuse it extra officers. One must consider the part of the country that one is dealing with. If, as in the inner cities, we have increasing problems of violence, the Home Office must respond by allocating additional officers and making additional funding available for that area. Until that is done the general public will not accept that the Government are doing all that they can or should to combat vicious crime and personal attacks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith referred to shops which sell a wide range of guns and knives. There is such a shop in my constituency, but I shall not say where it is because I do not want to give it publicity. I visited it, and it has an enormous range of all kinds of firearms, including machine guns, knives, daggers and even a hand grenade. I am prepared to accept that the hand grenade may be an imitation, but it is a most lifelike one. They are all openly displayed in the shop window. Local people who have approached me have named the shop the muggers' shop because it is where those who are interested in crime and violence could go. People can visit such shops freely and purchase whatever is on sale.

I have told the police in Wandsworth that local people are extremely worried about the shop and the types of items that it sells. The police are also extremely worried. A couple of weeks ago the commander of W division of the Metropolitan police force told me that he believes that in virtually all the apparently armed hold-ups imitation weapons are used. If an expert saw a person draw one of those imitation guns and heard him say, "This is a hold up" and "Hand over the money" or whatever, I defy even that expert to declare that the gun is an imitation. The guns are extremely lifelike.

When I take up this anxiety with the police, they tell me that they can do nothing about it because the shop and people are not breaking the law. I beg the Minister to reconsider the issue because it is becoming a problem. I have not discussed it with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, but he faces the same problem, and there must be many more similar shops throughout the country. They are extremely frightening to the local community, and we should not allow their numbers to grow because they undoubtedly cause problems to local people. Although the Minister may be unable to say much about it today, I hope that he will ask his officials to consider the matter and make recommendations that will help not only my constituents but the police.

Many people, especially the elderly, are worried about the violence of very young people, often school children, against the elderly, who are not mobile and who cannot run away if they are threatened. There is a project in my area called Tooting Action for the Pensioners. Its representatives were extremely worried about attacks made on elderly people in the area, so they contacted the head teachers of local schools and asked that members of their group be allowed to speak to youngsters in schools. The scheme was successful, because for the first time many youngsters were forced to think how they would react if their grandparents were mugged, robbed or beaten up with the atrocious violence about which we hear too often. With the right presentation, youngsters began to realise that the elderly were unable to defend themselves. We should try to encourage such involvement in our education system, because the more we bring home to youngsters the serious consequences of the violence with which many of our constituents must live daily, the more it will do to prevent the appalling problem.

The more we discuss this issue, the better. Of course, not all hon. Members accept everything that the Government or the Opposition say should be done, but today there has been a meeting of minds. We are all deeply worried about increasing violence, because it affects all our constituents. However, I hope that the Minister will not repeat what we have heard so often about the Government providing more police and resources than ever before. Let him tell us what the Government will do to build on that. What will they do to curb the offences that I and many of the hon. Members who have spoken today have tried to highlight? The more we do that, the better will be the understanding of the general public. Sadly, people often say to us, "You do not really understand our views or our worries." We must say that we do understand and share their anxieties, and we wish to do all that we can to reduce the sad menace that is creeping through our society—in many areas, it is travelling very quickly.

12.48 pm

Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough and Horncastle)

Issues come and go, but I have received more letters on this issue than on any other during my two and a half years as a Member of Parliament. I shall convey to the House the views of my constituents, because they have asked me to do so. No issue disillusions ordinary people more with the political process. To them, the solutions are clear. They cannot understand why politicians find it impossible to deal with the problem.

Ordinary people feel that the pendulum has swung too far in education. [Interruption.] I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am having some trouble with the tooth about which I went to see my dentist earlier this week. You will have to excuse my speech, which may not be as brisk as it normally is.

Ordinary people feel that the pendulum has swung too far from the inculcation of self-discipline to self-expression. They do not argue with self-expression, but they believe that it has resulted in the chaos of the abstract painting, not the order of the classic composition. They feel that there needs to be more talk of duties, not of rights. They remember the words of President Kennedy: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

People also feel strongly about the media. People used to sneer at Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, but most of my constituents do not. They believe that those who seek to entertain the nation must instruct it as well. They have a duty to inculcate respect for the Christian values, compassion and morality and humanity, and not for violence and hatred.

My constituents also express concern about the occupations of young people. They believe that inactivity should not be an option for young people, particularly for those under the age of 20. They welcome the Manpower Services Commission schemes that the Government have brought in, which have led to £1 million being spent in the Gainsborough area alone this year. They fear, however, that the YTS scheme has not gone far enough and hope that it will be extended beyond the 18-year-olds to the 20-year-olds. I appreciate that there are problems of cost, but this is what my constituents are telling me.

After the worries about education, the media and occupation, my constituents still feel that the Government have not gone far enough in redressing the swing of the pendulum against punishment. They believe that justice is too slow. In my time practising in criminal courts in London, I have also felt this. More stipendiary justices should be appointed, and 24-hour courts set up. There has to be some limitation to right of jury trial for minor crimes. Justice needs to be fair, to be just, but it must be swift as well.

My constituents—the political establishment may sneer at them for this—still write me dozens of letters about capital and corporal punishment. I have referred these letters to Ministers. I appreciate the arguments used against the reintroduction of corporal punishment, but I must bring my constituents' feelings before the House.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with those three subjects of full occupation for young people and redressing the declining standards in education and the media, and assure my constituents that we can thereby deter young offenders.

12.53 pm

Mr. John Ryman (Blyth Valley)

I had not intended to speak, but I have been prompted to do so by the speech of the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh). I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the other speakers in the debate for not having been present to hear the earlier speeches. I have not had an opportunity of hearing what has no doubt been a good Friday morning debate.

I am incensed by the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle saying, when dealing with the slowness of the administration of justice based on his experience, that there is a case for abolishing the right of trial by jury for certain minor offences. That was what I understood the tenor of his remarks to be. Presumably the hon. Gentleman does not remember the great difficulties experienced by Parliament when it considered the James report on this subject, particularly in the other place. It was difficult to draw the line between offences that are serious enough to be tried by a jury, where the election is by either the defence or the prosecution, and the abolition of that right, with restriction to summary trials only.

An example of that, which is relevant to young people, is the offence of criminal damage. In the other place, the argument, which took place several years ago, was that offences of criminal damage below a certain value should be only summary offences, but that above a certain value the defence should have a right to trial by jury. It broke down because nobody could agree about the value to be placed on the act of criminal damage that would remove the right of trial by jury. It was unworkable because there could be conflicting evidence from the prosecution and the defence about the value of a particular piece of property. If, for example, the right to trial by jury were abolished for property under the value of £100, one witness might say that it was worth more than £100, while another witness might say that it was worth less than £100.

I understand, although I do not know whether the rumour is reliable, that the eminent committee that is headed by Lord Roskill—which, among other subjects, is considering whether trial by jury should be abolished for commercial fraud, on the basis that cases of commercial fraud are too complicated for a jury to understand and that it should be replaced by a panel consisting of a single judge and assessors—will recommend when it reports in the near future that trial by jury should be retained in all cases, including those of commercial fraud.

One needs to be very careful about accepting the argument of the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle, with whom we all commiserate because of his toothache, that the right to trial by jury should be limited or possibly abolished. I believe in juries. On the whole they get it right, although in many cases perverse verdicts have been recorded and guilty men and women, in the face of the evidence, have got off. This point is topical at a time when suggestions are being made about an alteration to the rules relating to peremptory challenges in trials by jury. I believe in jury trials, and the House of Commons should be very slow to interfere with a right that has been fought for over a very long time and is one of the principal safeguards of civil liberties in this country.

May I deal with another matter that is germane to a point that was made earlier in the debate—the hoary old chestnut of capital and corporal punishment. I fully understand the feelings of constituents about capital and corporal punishment. When they read about a bad case that involves terrible violence, they are revolted by the facts of the case, as reported in the press. There is an understandable feeling of revenge. Strong feelings are aroused against the perpetrators of the offence. However, corporal punishment is a wholly impractical sentence to be carried out by any court. To have any salutary effect, corporal punishment must be carried out immediately after conviction and when sentence has been pronounced.

The very nature of the appellate procedure—the length of time that is taken to get an appeal under way, whether from a Crown court or a magistrates court—means that a sentence of corporal punishment would be postponed for many weeks, if not months, and therefore would not have a salutary effect. I ask the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle to consider the practical implications of his recommendation. This argument has been aired on many previous occasions. People would like corporal punishment to be reintroduced, but it is not a practical option in a civilised country whose administration of justice includes various appellate courts from the original sentence. To be effective at all it must be carried out immediately, and the very nature of our administration of justice system prevents that.

I shall not deal with capital punishment, because that has already been dealt with by Parliament on many occasions and the arguments on both sides are well known. I shall not weary the House with any repetition.

I do not know whether juvenile courts were mentioned in the speeches that I did not hear, but a lot of nonsense is talked about them by many well-meaning but misguided people. Any juvenile appearing before a court merits special consideration whether he is prosecuted on his own or as a co-defendant with adults. The machinery of juvenile courts must be geared to special considerations, and defendants must be treated sympathetically and with sensitivity. Some of the things that go on in our juvenile courts today are a disgrace. If we are to do anything about juvenile crime, the way not to do it is to deal with the juvenile defendants as they are sometimes dealt with by our juvenile courts.

Many years ago there used to be a juvenile court behind Harrods, presided over by a distinguished sociologist who is a member of the other place. The most terrible offences were tried at that court. I remember vividly on one occasion a horrible little juvenile defendant who was charged with a number of serious robberies involving acts of violence on old ladies. He was just on the point of making an admission in the course of a gentle and understanding cross-examination when the noble Lady adjourned the court after asking the defendant whether he felt unwell and would like some refreshment before continuing his cross-examination. I mention that simply as an illustration of the over-indulgence shown by some juvenile courts to defendants who, on the facts of a case, as subsequently proved, have committed serious offences.

I am all in favour of juvenile courts producing masses of reports—social, probation, education, medical, and psychiatric—because they help the courts in sentencing juveniles before them, but I am completely against the wishy-washy pussyfooting attitude which permeates through some magistrates courts because some magistrates do not seem to have in mind the serious consequences of offences committed by the juveniles before them.

I entirely agree that more stipendiary magistrates should be appointed. The Government have the plans, but do not produce the resources to pay for them. Stipendiary magistrates should deal with juvenile cases, and that would be a jolly good thing. Some of the things that go on in juvenile courts are incredible. Procedure is sloppy, despite the advice of qualified clerks, people are kept waiting indefinitely, and sometimes adjournments take place month after month because the courts are so congested. It is a lamentable state of affairs. I would support any measure which would produce more Government resources to improve the quality of juvenile courts and the speed with which they deal with cases.

In fairness to the Government, I should say that things have speeded up in the past two or three years. There is a far shorter waiting period between committal and trial now than there was several years ago in London and elsewhere. Progress is being made by the establishment of more Crown courts, the appointment of more circuit judges and the growth of new court complexes in London and the provinces. Progress is being made, but a great deal more needs to be done.

1.5 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor)

I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to a debate on the motion of considerable thoughtfulness proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith). My only regret is that the debate has not attracted as much interest as it might have done. Although we had a valuable infusion of interest part way through the debate, it is somewhat surprising that an issue of such significance has not attracted a larger turnout of hon. Members.

I commend the spirit in which the debate has been conducted. While it would be wrong to say that it has been free of any partisan assertions, there has been evidence of valuable across-the-House thinking. Obviously, I shall seek to respond in kind.

The thoughtful motion that my hon. Friend proposed is one on which he is eminently well qualified to speak, having had a most distinguished career in the media before entering the House and having served with distinction as a member of the Conservative parliamentary education committee and for a number of years as chairman of the media committee. Therefore, he raises issues with which he has been familiar for many years. Of course, we must not ignore his added qualification to speak about young people as the father of three children. As I am discovering to my cost as the father of two very young children, that gives one some expertise on juvenile misbehaviour.

It is worth picking up some of the points made in the debate—especially those made in the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), as well as those made by my hon. Friends the Members for Wealden and for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman)—about what precisely are the dimensions of juvenile crime, especially that involving violence. The evidence is interesting and does not all point in one direction, as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said.

It is true that our society has become increasingly violent during the past 30 years. The number of reported offences of violence—which are not an accurate indicator of the level of crime in our community, but give us some guidelines—has shown a dramatic increase during that period. In particular, there has been a very steep increase during the past 10 years. In 1974, 64,000 offences of violence were reported, compared with 114,000 in 1984.

As some of the responsibility for the increase in violent crime was laid at the door of the Government by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) and his colleagues during Home Office Question Time yesterday, it is worth remembering that while the increase in violent offences under this Government has been 20 per cent. during the past five years—a disturbing enough figure—the real increase—49 per cent—occurred between 1974 and 1979. That suggests that those who look for narrow partisan points to make are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden said, throwing their seed upon somewhat stony ground.

I define juveniles as being between the ages of 10 and 17. There is no doubt that they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. It has been well said that 15 is the peak age for offending among boys and 14 for offending among girls—something that causes us all, especially parents, great distress. Some 30 per cent. of those found guilty of or cautioned for indictable offences last year were in the 10 to 17 age bracket. If we add to that the 24 per cent. in the 17 to 21 age bracket, that means that more than 50 per cent. of those brought to book by the courts were aged between 10 and 21. That goes some way towards explaining the phenomenon of young men in custody mentioned by the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox).

Before we paint too black a picture, we must remember, as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said, that juveniles are proportionately less involved in violence than in other types of crime, especially criminal damage, burglary and the like. As I said, 30 per cent. of those found guilty were aged between 10 and 17, but only 20 per cent. of those convicted of or cautioned for crimes of violence were in that age bracket. It is interesting that the proportion of those between the ages of 10 and 17 who have been convicted of violence has fallen during the past 10 years. Eleven per cent. of those convicted of or cautioned for violence in 1974 were aged between 10 and 17, but by 1984 it was only 8.5 per cent. It is important to recognise that the currents are not all flowing in the same direction. Young adults—those between 17 and 21—are disproportionately prone to violence. Of those convicted last year for wounding, assault, robbery and rape, 50 per cent. were between 17 and 24 and 75 per cent. were between 14 and 24.

We know that criminality is very much a problem of adolescence, but it is interesting to see the changes over the decade. In 1974, 480,000 people were found guilty of or cautioned for indictable offences, of whom 185,000 were between 10 and 17 and 96,500 were between 17 and 21. In 1984, 571,000 people were cautioned or found guilty of indictable offences—an increase of 91,000—but the number aged between 10 and 17 so cautioned or convicted fell by 16,000 to 169,000, while—this is perhaps a trouble point—those convicted or cautioned in 1984 between the ages of 17 and 21 increased by no fewer than 40,000, or just over 40 per cent., to 136,000. Thus, between 17 and 21 is the real growth area where there is the likelihood of serious offending.

Even then, there is good news among the bad. While it came as a shock to some people that a research survey showed not long ago that one in three of those under 28 would have been convicted or cautioned for at least one offence, only 5 per cent. of those become seriously involved in the longer term in crime, and most of those who pass out of the 17 to 21 age group do not reoffend. One has the spectacle, therefore, of the teddy boy of yesteryear sitting in his armchair watching "Coronation Street" today and tut-tutting about the evils of the younger generation.

A crucial theme of Government policy is to try to make sure that what we do, while it satisfies the public in terms of the amount of crime cleared up and shows that the punishment fits the crime—I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell) about the need to demonstrate that muggers will be sent to prison and so on—ensures that our criminal justice policies do not impede that process by which people grow out of crime.

That is why the Government have given equal attention not just to revising the way in which we treat youngsters in custody—particularly through the much more sophisticated training in the youth custody system than was ever possible under borstal—but to increasing the amount of money made available to intermediate treatment, which is an important development, and, for instance, to making community service, which has been one of the great success areas in our penal policy, available to 16-year-olds.

We must try so far as possible not to enhance the liability of youngsters to continue to offend and one way to do that is to put youngsters who do not really need custody into custody, where all they learn are the bad habits of that small hard core of recidivist offenders who are not only serious offenders in their teens but who go on to become serious offenders for the rest of their lives.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I accept everything that the Minister has said on this subject. There is a problem in trying to go further down that road in that there are occasions when the courts are inhibited from making community service orders because of a lack of community service provision nationally. Remembering that community service is often a far more effective alternative to custody, is there any hope that in the coming year the Government will apply an extended variety of options for community service?

Mr. Mellor

We are anxious to do that and to build on the success of community service by moving down tariff to reparation and similar schemes, which would command support across the House. In proportionate terms, the increase in the number of probation officers has exceeded the increase in the number of police officers. The number of probation ancillaries, who do the work of supervising community service, has gone up in the last six years by over 40 per cent.

However, a consequence, which has many virtues, of having many independent probation areas throughout the country is that it gives the opportunity for the probation service to be genuinely responsive to local needs, because they do not all move at the same speeds. There is a time lag during which initiatives are put into practice. It is an abiding principle of the Home Office to try to ensure that there is no logistical reason why the courts should not pass sentences that they think proper. We would not want to think of people going into custody because, although the court was prepared to take a non-custodial option, that option was not available in practical terms.

It is interesting to consider the causes of juvenile delinquency. This factor was at the centre, and rightly so, of many of the contributions to the debate that I enjoyed especially. I remind the House of a long review that was commissioned by the Department of Health and. Social Security and the Home Office and published by the Research Planning Unit in 1982. The causal factors of juvenile delinquency were examined and that led to a number of conclusions which echo some of the comments that have been made today.

Five causal factors were nominated. The first factor was personality, including cognitive and educational retardation, hyperactivity and attention-seeking. It considered that all these factors were linked to recidivist delinquency. It should be possible to determine the children who are exhibiting these personality traits and to try to address the problems within the home, school, education and medical services that are provided.

The second causal factor was found to be the family, which is so important. Under this head appeared parental criminality, which plainly encourages the criminality of children, ineffective discipline within the home, family discord, weak parent-child relationships and large families. All these circumstances can be numbered among the causal factors.

Another factor is the system itself, which includes court appearances at which offenders are labelled as delinquents, which has an effect on those who are subject to self-deception. There is some inevitability about that in many instances. The survey found that pupil intake and school ethics can have an effect on delinquency.

The fifth factor was the environment. There are marked differences in delinquency rates in rural and urban areas. I recall that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey made that very point.

There are no real explanations, but it is becoming increasingly clear—even more so than it was to the authors of the report in 1982—that physical design features may contribute to what is now called situational crime prevention. Broadwater Farm was a showpiece of the previous decade, but we look back now with a somewhat jaundiced eye at something which seems to have built into it an open opportunity and invitation to criminal behaviour. These are matters that all of us have to take seriously.

In this generation of politics—this applies especially to those of us who represent urban areas—we are the inheritors of what took place in the 1950s and 1960s. We are reaping a somewhat bitter harvest from some of the rather pie-in-the-sky aspirations of previous generations, which thought that large housing estates were an improvement on what had gone before.

Mr. Chris Smith

I accept what the Minister has said about the nature of housing estates that were built in the 1950s and 1960s, but the Government have reduced expenditure on housing from the Exchequer by about 60 per cent. over the past six years. That has undoubtedly had an effect on the inability of many local authorities to improve the estates to which he is referring.

Mr. Mellor

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman's statistic tells anything like a fair story. I know that the borough of Wandsworth is able to contemplate spending about £20 million on upgrading the Roehampton estate alone. It is one of the LCC's showpieces. As it has not had purely Socialist management since its construction, it has survived in a rather better state than some of the estates which were built at the same time. The Pepys estate at Greenwich and the Broadwater Farm estate have suffered somewhat more that the Roehampton estate. If Wandsworth is able to contemplate spending £20 million on one estate, one wonders why other local authorities are not able to do likewise.

The Government have focused on the rehabilitation of older property. There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of money that is available in the form of grants to renovate our older terraces. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey bears a quizzical expression.

I shall write to him and set out the figures. I am not, of course, trying to do the job of Ministers at the Department of the Environment. I have an interest in that matter as a Member representing an inner London area which has benefited from the enormous rehabilitation of and improvement to terraced properties.

In yesteryear people took the bulldozer to viable communities and replaced them with soulless and heartless housing estates. If we are now learning that lesson and rehabilitating houses which have plenty of life left, it must be a step in the right direction. That is what we are trying to do.

A tremendous amount of money has been injected into the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Tooting correctly pointed to the improved expenditure on the police. It has been about 35 per cent. in real terms, and has led to an increase of about 4,500 in the Metropolitan police. However, it still leaves many communities feeling that they want more. We are alive to that fact, and there is to be an increase in Metropolitan police manpower this coming year.

We are also glad to see the way in which the community has welcomed with open arms the return of police officers to the beat, and the home beat system, which the hon. Member for Tooting and I know because W division is especially good at maintaining it. That is a tremendous improvement on police in panda cars. I was glad to hear what he said, because respect for the police and wanting more police on the streets should not be the monopoly of one party.

I have been troubled by the extent to which some members of the Labour party have wanted to retard the natural development of police-community relations, in particular with regard to what I see as one of the most exciting developments—the ability of the police to be in the neighbourhood and to act as the catalyst to make the community resist crime through neighbourhood watch schemes. I know that the hon. Member for Tooting favours such schemes. I wish that he would have a word with one or two other prominent Socialists in London, especially in inner London, who are doing their best to sabotage that exciting development. It is about communities responding to the threat of crime.

What some hon. Members have said in the debate is true. People will succumb to temptation when it is placed in their way. Kids with nothing to do, who may have been turned out of school early as a result of industrial action, or latchkey kids, find the opportunity to burgle a house or take a car—the Devil does make work for idle hands—so the community must be better able to prevent the opportunities for crime being so many and varied.

I should like to deal with the three issues identified in the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden—the home, the school and the media. The Government are placing increasing significance on crime prevention. I am glad that there was a welcome, other than just from my hon. Friends, for the Prime Minister's initiative in calling together in January a number of leading citizens from industry, commerce, the unions and elsewhere to discuss crime prevention.

I am sure that the criminal justice system alone cannot defeat crime because, by the time someone falls into the hands of the police or the courts, the community has already failed. The crime has been committed. We must study the roots of crime. That takes me neatly into the home.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden began the debate by emphasising the home. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey spoke of the despair of parents who are bemused by the fact that, however carefully they have tried to bring up their children, they have fallen into bad company and committed offences. It is wrong to see all parents as being indifferent to whether their children turn to crime. That is not the case. In relation to drugs, I have learnt how cunning some kids are in disguising from their parents what they are up to. We must not underestimate the sophistication of teenagers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington was also correct to make it clear that adults' willingness to take mood-changing drugs was not the best example to give kids. He pointed to the examples of some adults. All those factors are relevant.

I should like to draw the attention of the House to a Home Office research study published this year about parental supervision and juvenile delinquency. It contains a mixture of good and troubling news which is crucial to a proper understanding of the position. The study was based on interviews with 751 families with a 14 or 15-year-old child. The sample was divided between families with boys and girls and included a proportion of one-parent families. The report aimed to give an overall picture of the lives of the families in relation to supervision.

The general findings of that interesting report were encouraging in the sense that the delinquency was not linked either to having a working mother or to being part of a one-parent family. It is important to remember that when one sometimes hears the whole of the juvenile crime problem being blamed on those two phenomena of modern life. It is particularly important to people in my constituency, where at several schools over 50 per cent. of the children now come from one-parent families. It is plainly wrong to link that factor with delinquency.

The clearest finding was the link between an individual child's delinquency and the levels of delinquency among his or her friends. It is the pressure of the peer group that is important. It confirms much of what I hear through my specific interest in the drugs problem. Youngsters start to take drugs because of two factors—the pressure of the peer group of their friends and curiosity. Parents need to know who their youngsters are mixing with, and to encourage the kind of confidence which will enable their children to talk about the pressures to which they are subjected by their friends. Then, particularly if there is interchange between parents, youngsters can be steered away from those among their peer group who are most likely to lead them into trouble. It will also help us generally in battling with the problem of juvenile crime.

I referred earlier to people growing out of crime as the pressure and influence of friends begin to decline. That is not to say that friendship is not important but, as youngsters get older, the need to be doing exactly what their friends are doing begins to decline. If we could attack the problem of negative peer group pressure and find positive ways of counteracting it, we could begin to take a major step forward.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I think the Minister will accept that, although it is not a matter of direct cause and effect, high unemployment provides an opportunity for peer group pressure to be much more influential from the time that young people leave school. Youngsters spend much time with each other. They watch each other's activities and mimic them, instead of doing their own thing and making their own way through training into work. I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government now accept that there is a factor contributing to criminality when there is no activity or interesting occupation to distract youngsters from each other's company, and when at least one of them is doing something criminal and leading others astray.

Mr. Mellor

My answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is a combination of yes and no. It is yes in the sense that, where we are dealing with those who leave school and are not getting jobs, we accept the need to offer them something positive and challenging. That is why we are building on the success of the youth training scheme and introducing the two-year YTS which will cost £1.1 billion in a full year. That is a crucial figure in the context of the criticism that we are not providing money to help solve the problem.

No one now needs to go through the crucial years from 16 to 18 without being given something worth while to do. It is not simply a matter of keeping them off the streets or keeping them quiet. It is the training they get that will help to give them a future. All the evidence is showing that already two thirds of those who go on the courses are either getting jobs at the end of the course or being stimulated back into higher education. The hon. Member for Hammersmith was right to say that not everybody catches the education bus straight from school. Some people under-achieve at school and go back into education later. We have to recognise that in some cases the education engine can be started later. We are trying to find ways of doing that.

The only reason why I say no is that the study from which I quoted dealt specifically with children who were still at school. We know that many youngsters in their mid-teens are getting involved in offences. They are not the most serious offences, but they are offences which could establish a pattern of behaviour. The reasons of those youngsters for getting involved in offending are clearly not related to unemployment.

It saddened me that there was an absence in some of the speeches, and a marked absence in the document recently published by the Church of England, of one important factor—personal responsibility. That is important to young people everywhere, particularly in the inner cities where the stresses are greater. The need to promote self-control was also absent but it is important, whether one is considering a child in a school, youth club or the home.

The reason for many offences is the instant gratification of impulse. That is the motivating factor behind the way in which so many people behave. Frustration gives way to the instantaneous response of criminal damage or violence. The long walk home on a wet night gives rise to instant gratification of the impulse to smash a car windscreen, get in, and drive it away. It is in the offences that reflect giving way to the impulse of the moment that we have seen recent growth—criminal damage and motor car offences. Personal responsibility is crucial to the issue. Parents must foster that, the Government must help and schools have an important duty to encourage it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden proposed a neat Morton's fork in the approach to the schools that I would say is unanswerable. Schools cannot say that they are more than just examination factories if they do not take on board the need to ensure that what they should do during school hours—which is a large part of a child's day—is to promote the wider concept of good citizenship. That must involve stressing personal responsibility, the need for self-control and maturity. If I am right in saying that peer pressure is behind much of the behaviour, it is in the school that one of the positive attempts can be made—I know in many schools it is being made—to counteract such pressure.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is taking several initiatives to promote that approach. I shall mention three of them. First, he will issue guidance making clear the responsibilities of school governing bodies in the promotion of good citizenship. School governing bodies are to be recast to give parents more impact. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey sympathises with me, but the dead hand of political control of school governors that we see in the Inner London education authority is awful.

Secondly, Her Majesty's inspectors of schools are carrying out a review of good practice in schools in the areas of relationship, behaviour, attitudes to work and discipline so that good practice may become standard practice. That is a legitimate aspiration. It is not just handing out tablets of stone, but looking to the schools to see where leadership is being given and trying to encourage others to follow.

Thirdly, my right hon. Friend is agreeable to giving positive consideration to making education support grants available for local education authority schemes to combat juvenile crime. That is a potentially important development. I echo the rebuke of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire about the uncritical approach to public expenditure. It can be demonstrated, though not by a mere Home Office Minister, that the Government have increased public expenditure in real terms and as a proportion of our gross national product. If resources were the answer to the problems that we have been dealing with, the dramatic increases of resources, in key areas that we have seen over the past 30 or 40 years should have rid us of them, if it were that simple.

The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) mentioned the ILEA. That authority is well resourced. The money comes from the ratepayer, not from the taxpayer, but it is the same person who is footing the bill. Some 46 per cent. of my rates in Wandsworth go to the ILEA. Does that expenditure justify the fact that last year, despite a 4.5 per cent. increase in the number of children, there was a 10 per cent. increase in non-teaching staff? Why should it cost 50 per cent. more to light and heat a classroom for a child in the ILEA than anywhere else in the country?

One sees the uncritical approach to public expenditure. If we had been told a few weeks ago that the London borough of Brent, not a large area, spent £30 million on its social services and employed 2,000 people, would we not think that little Jasmine Beckford should have been a good deal better off than she turned out to be? When one considers the £1 million that the GLC will spend on the Brent Irish centre, one begins to realise that the idea that public expenditure is the sole determinant of human happiness is well wide of the mark.

Mr. Chris Smith

The Minister is less than fair in his comments on the Inner London education authority. It is one of the six education authorities out of over 90 which, in Her Majesty's Inspector's report, qualified as providing an adequate standard of education. The ILEA is rightly proud of that. Improvements are needed in many respects, but surely there is a connection between the cost of providing a good education service and the provision of resources to meet those costs. The Minister ignores that.

Mr. Mellor

The hon. Gentleman is not disagreeing with me. Whatever else we say about the ILEA, it is not under resourced. He agrees with me about that. That does not mean that kids coming out of schools in Brixton are in harmony with the community in which they live. We must recognise that the problem of alienation among teenagers there—I represented some of them when I was practising at the Bar—is not resolved by their having been through the most expensive education system yet devised in this country. I am asking that we do not simplify the arguments too much, and think that it is all a matter of expenditure. I am sad if I have not made one thing clear in my speech. I am not denying the role of spending. In fact, I gloried in some of the spending increases that we made. However, it must be properly targeted. Just throwing money at the problem does not make it go away. I wish that it did. We would all have less to do if that were so.

We must not ignore what was said in the motion and some of the more thoughtful contributions about the media. Several hon. Members referred to concern about violence on television and its impact. Like so many of those matters, it is not easy to determine what that impact is. Many think—I am one of them—that we are entitled to rely on common sense, and common sense must lead us to suspect that the constant diet of violence, particularly for young and impressionable minds, leads to some desensitisation, and, if dwelt on lovingly, can encourage people to go out and engage in violence. It can create the impression that violence is a normal response to everyday problems in society.

We must also look at what research tells us. Again, the message is not entirely clear, but there is no doubt that the overall conclusion is that, despite extensive studies, it is not possible to demonstrate that films on television do or do not exercise a socially harmful influence. There is no positive correlation between the increase in violence and the increase in television viewing, distressing though it is to me, as well as to my hon. Friends, that over 20 hours a week of the average teenager's time is spent watching television.

Research has confirmed our worries in two areas. First, if young children under six watch violent films, that can give rise to violent imitative behaviour. Far too many youngsters of that age are allowed freer access to the television than they should have. Many who believe, as I do, in the value of pre-school education know that many attitudes are formed at that age.

Secondly, and just as distressing, older children whose development has been impaired are more likely to seek gratification in television violence and are more prone to be influenced by it. In other words, those who are already damaged are damaged further. That ties in with some court evidence where people convicted of serious offences of violence maintain that they felt some pressure to act in that way as a result of what they had seen on television.

The duty of parents was well set out by my hon. friend the Member for Wealden when he reminded the House that there was the "off' switch. Certainly, broadcasters are right when they say that they cannot work on the assumption that young children will be allowed access to the television, however late in the evening. The maintenance of standards is plainly a matter for the broadcasting authorities which act under a clear statutory duty. The IBA, for example, has a statutory duty to satisfy itself that so far as possible nothing is included in the programmes broadcast that offends against good taste or decency or that is likely to encourage or incite crime or lead to disorder or be offensive to public feeling. It also has a duty to ensure that programmes maintain a high general standard, a proper balance and wide range in subject matter, and to secure a wide showing for programmes of merit. The responsibilities of the BBC mirror that. Broadcasters do not jib at the concept of public service, of being trustees of the public interest, and of being responsive to the public will. That is right and proper.

It is not part of the Government's duty or intention to dictate to the media on this or any other issue. Their duty is merely to voice any concern when they feel it and to echo public concern. The principal channel of communication between the public and the media is by the public making points directly to the media when there is concern—for example, about the diet of violence. One may think it a paradox that, at a time when more people are undoubtedly becoming alert to the worries about the influence of the constant diet of violence on the screen on youngsters, only a small proportion of the public takes the trouble to complain to the media. In the year to March 1985, for example, only 1.3 per cent. of the complaints sent to the IBA were about violence on television programmes, and the BBC showed the same figures.

There are guidelines about violence. I have the guidelines of the IBA, which are contained in a full document, which was revised as recently as February 1984, and I also have the BBC's guidelines on violence, which reflect a report of a committee of senior BBC executives chaired by Mr. Wyatt, the head of documentary features television, and published in 1983. Clearly the BBC is only too well aware of the problems that violence may pose in the wider community.

The House may be interested to know that the BBC told us that it has recently decided to re-establish the Wyatt committee to see whether further modifications are needed to its document. The committee will not only consider whether the guidelines need amending, but will assess their application during the period in which they have been in force. Many hon. Members will see that as an encouraging response by the BBC to what is being said.

In the new year we shall have the opportunity of considering a proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill)—that the Obscene Publications Act 1959 should be made applicable to broadcasting, and I shall not pre-empt the discussions about that. The point that emerges with clarity from today's debate is that we are not raising anxieties that material in breach of the 1959 Act is being shown on television.

The question which is raised in the correspondence that we receive and in our speeches is whether material that is accepted as being within the law is harmful, and whether the debate about films being shown—most notably recently two films on Channel 4—relates not to the question of material said to be outwith the 1959 Act, but to whether such material should be shown on television uncut, even at a late hour, and even though it has a cinema certificate.

It is important to remember that broadcasters are applying standards far stricter than those contained in the 1959 Act. Thus, last weekend, a specially edited version of a film well known in the cinema—"Dressed to Kill"—was shown on television. Equally, the BBC has decided—most hon. Members will believe rightly—that "First Blood" is an unsuitable film for Christmas, even though it obtained a 15 certificate when it was classified for the cinema. The problems of violence on television are distinct from the problems of what should be seen in any form in our community. I do not envy the broadcasters their task of making those difficult judgments, but they, and we, know that they cannot shirk those judgments, and there is clear evidence that they do not.

I am grateful for the opportunity of responding to the debate and to my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden for introducing such a thoughtful motion, which I wholeheartedly commend to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House views with great concern the problem of violent crime committed by the young; notes the important influence which parents, the schools and the media can have in their formative years; and calls upon the Government to lead a renewed and vigorous effort to develop in our young people an increased sense of responsibility and awareness of the interests of their fellow citizens, and to encourage their more active participation in their communities.