§ 11. Mr. SkinnerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will initiate new studies into the causes of crime and its relationship to unemployment.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd)Work on that subject was covered in the Home Office research study, "Trends in crime and their interpretation", published in 1990 and I have no current plans for fresh research in that area.
§ Mr. SkinnerI regard that as shocking complacency on the part of the Government. Everyone knows that young men and women are without jobs; there are 500,000 of them on schemes and a further 500,000 waiting to leave school who cannot be motivated by their teachers because they know that their brothers and sisters have not had a job for four or five years. Is it any wonder that in our area people still repeat the old adage that the devil makes work for idle hands? It is time that the Government got back to full employment or made way for a party that will create employment.
§ Mr. LloydThe hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) gets carried away as he expresses his own prejudices rather than the truth. The study made it perfectly clear—I quote from the introduction by Dr. Simon Field—that the fluctuations in the total numbers of unemployed persons appear to be independent of the fluctuation in the number of offences. I will give the hon.
931 Gentleman an example that will appeal to his hon. Friends. When unemployment fell by 6 per cent. under the Conservatives in 1970–74, reported crime rose by 6 per cent. per year. When the Labour Government that followed the Conservative Government in 1974–79 saw unemployment rise by 17 per cent., reported crime increased by only 4 per cent. I expect the hon. Gentleman to tell me next that Labour unemployment is not merely better than Conservative unemployment, but is better than Conservative recovery as well.
§ Sir Anthony GrantWill my hon. Friend reject once and for all the absurd myth that there is a direct link between unemployment and the rise in crime? Bearing in mind that before the war there was far greater poverty and unemployment, and far less crime, will he apply his mind much more to the real reasons, which are the breakdown in family life and, not least, the continual flouting of authority which is so much encouraged by Opposition Members?
§ Mr. LloydMy hon. Friend is right, although I am sure that individual unemployment can be a precipitating factor in individual cases, and that areas of multiple deprivation are huge impediments to normal law-abiding life. These are complicated problems, which we are seeking to tackle with inner city programmes, most particularly city challenge. When one considers the people who have been convicted and are in prison, what strikes one particularly is the large proportion who have been in care. Up to 40 per cent. of young offenders in prison have been in care, compared with 2 per cent. of the population as a whole, and 30 per cent. of them were consistently truanting in their last years at school. Most of them, however, have had a job, although I have no doubt at all that for the large minority who have not a large part of the reason is that they think that honest work is a mug's game.
§ Ms RuddockNo one on this side of the House deems that unemployment is any excuse for crime, but the Minister's last reply gave more considered attention to this issue. Is he aware that in London, in the poorest areas and those with highest unemployment, such as Southwark, Lambeth and Hackney, there are indeed the highest crime rates, particularly for robberies and burglaries? How does he respond to deputy assistant commissioner Roach of the Metropolitan police, who said:
Crime trends are largely determined by social factors…over which the police have very little influence"?I suggest that the Government have much control over many of those social factors and that it is time that they attended to them and really exerted some influence towards reducing the crime rate, particularly in the capital.
§ Mr. LloydWhat is perfectly clear—I will send the hon. Lady the research if she has not seen it—is that, despite all our efforts over the years to find a connection between unemployment and crime, we have not done so. Nevertheless, as I have said, I have no doubt that unemployment and many other factors play a part in individual tendencies to crime. It is too easy for Opposition Members to blame unemployment. It is a complex vicious circle and, as I said in reply to my hon. Friends, the whole range of factors, particularly in the deprived areas of inner cities, needs to be tackled as a whole. That is exactly what the Government's inner city programmes seek to do. There is no single answer. Unemployment is certainly not a prime cause or a direct 932 cause of crime. To say that it is such a cause is an insult to those who are unemployed and who would never indulge in crime.