Recorded recently in Wood Green:
Of course, if you are an iTunes user and have signed up to my iTunes feed (see panel on the right) you’ll already have had this film delivered to automatically!
We Can Cut Crime
This 
afternoon it was out campaigning in Wood Green as part of the Liberal Democrats’ We Can Cut Crime campaign.
When you have been in power for ten years like Labour have, you don’t really have much excuse for not getting the capacity of the prisons system worked out properly – nor for having a Home Office that is so badly run. What were all the Labour Home Secretaries doing when they should have been on the job?
With re-offending rates so high we will never make progress until those who are jailed for crimes can be changed from criminals into law-abiding members of society who pay tax, and not cost us our taxes because – remember – nearly everyone will get released from jail at some point or other. But when we do say we’re sending someone away for life it should mean that – no more of this nonsense of calling “life” a sentence that is in reality for only a few years. Life should mean life, with clear and transparent sentences everyone can follow.
More police too – paid for out of the money the Government insists on spending on ineffective ID cards. They should spend the billions chasing the guilty not tagging the innocent. Community punishments also – yes punishments, not soft options – to make sure that the non-dangerous criminal pays their dues – but in a constructive way.
It’s not rocket science!
And the blueprints are in our five-point plan on www.wecancutcrime.com.
New police presence in Wood Green
Officially opened the Safer Neighbourhood Shop in Wood Green. Shopping City has kindly given a prime position for this drop in shop for three weeks over the Christmas period. If you go in (right next to entrance to Shopping City) you will find the local Noel Park Safer Neighbourhood Team (aided and abetted by the local community wardens and the local fire fighters) handing out advice and free gadgets to help deter and prevent crime.
At a time when thieves carry on – even taking presents from around a Christmas Tree as we read to our horror every year in the newspapers – it is important that people take as many sensible precautions as possible both for their home and when out.
There are also smoke detectors from the Fire Fighters – as Christmas is also a time when candles can lead to accidental fires and there is an awful lot of cooking going on at the same time as a bit of celebratory sherry!
So – drop in and take care.
An extra jail place or an extra police officer?
The 
cost of jailing someone for one year is roughly the same as the cost of employing a full time policeman for a year. That’s the starting point for my piece in this week’s Liberal Democrat News about fighting crime:
So when Tories and Labour thump their tubs about being tough on crime, we shouldn’t feel meek about pointing out the costs of their failed policies. Having a large prison population is not a sign of success – it is a sign of a failure to prevent crime and it leaches huge resources away from other parts of the justice system. Instead of prioritising preventative police work and rehabilitating re-offenders, money is sucked into cramming people into poor conditions. Now – you might say, they are criminals so who cares how bad their conditions are?
You can read my answer to this question in the full article on my website.
Anti-knife crime week
Woodside High School are having an anti knife-crime week – and all Tuesday is taken up with me and police and young people talking, with theatre and panels on how to resolve the terrible problems that carrying knives have become.
I give a ten minute introduction and then a senior police officer tells the hall (full of year 11s etc) what the police are doing. Then the Comedy Store takes over. They have a production which addresses the issue through humour, but which addresses the issues of the law, the dangers, situations, peer pressure, life choices – so much better than just talking heads.
People seemed to really enjoy it and so the panel afterwards were flooded with questions – some cheeky – but many seemed very concerned as to what they could or couldn’t do within the law. I really hope it beds in. Knives can mess it all up for a child who otherwise has a great life and great contribution ahead of them.
Full marks to Woodside for taking it so seriously and devoting proper time and effort to it. They have a fabulous police officer in the school – Velda Ewen: an absolute gift for the school – committed, enthusiastic and with just the best personality for the job! Congrats to all who took part – and to the kids – ‘cos its their lives and in the end – it’s they who have to take responsibility for their actions.
Security: there's more to it than crime and terrorism
When 
Labour talk about security these days, it’s all about fighting criminals and battling terrorists. But there is more to security than that … as I wrote about in my latest newspaper column, which came out this week:
Amid all the pomp and circumstance (of which there is a lot when Her Majesty pays us a visit in Parliament) the airways were overwhelmed with the Queen’s Speech and the pending Blair Switch Project, but the latest unemployment statistics were published with relatively little comment. The rise in unemployment itself was statically relatively small, but the headline gave me reason to pause: unemployment at seven-year high.
You can read the column in full on my website.
Violent Crime Reduction Bill – nearly there!
The Violent Crime Reduction Bill came back to the Commons for Lords Amendments. All over bar the shouting really! The Government had finally realised that it had to lay amendments lengthening the sentence for carrying a knife or bladed weapon in a public place. There had been a Tory amendment to lengthen it to 5 years and a Lib Dem one to lengthen it to 7 (same as for a gun) – but the Government had voted against previously. However, it is often the way that the Government just won’t vote positively on an opposition amendment. They vote against and then bring it back themselves later in the process. So who cares – so long as they finally saw sense.
That having been said – it ain’t just the sentence. The real proof of pudding will be less young people carrying – and that needs a mix of police work, prevention, education, making kids feel safe on the streets, giving them life chances, working with them to show it’s not ‘cool’ – as well as the deterrent of a longer sentence and the actual custodial detention itself. It isn’t quick, cheap or easy to change a whole culture – but that’s what we are up against.
The other highlights were around imitation firearms, Drink Banning Orders and Alcohol Disorder Zones. We support totally the tackling of the twin challenges of weapons and alcohol – but it’s how these laws are enforced that will matter. Anyway – now that one is on its way to the final stage of legislation. Whew!
Knife crime
Managed to get called during Business Questions – which is a quaint way of bringing constituency issues to the fore and asking the Leader of the House (Labour MP Jack Straw) for a debate. The debate I asked for was on the rate of grant from the government for statutory support for asylum seekers.
In Haringey we happily provide support for a very high level of asylum seekers. But if you take even just one element of Government funding support – the rates for looking after unaccompanied asylum seeker children – the grant doesn’t come anywhere near the actual cost. And even worse – not only does the Government funding not cover the costs, but the costs racked up by the Government’s failure to make asylum decisions quickly – because much of the cost in that maintenance is due during the period whilst the Home Office (that oh so fit for purpose establishment) takes years to process the legality or otherwise of the asylum seeker.
It is completely unfair and unsustainable on those areas where asylum seekers naturally congregate.Jack Straw’s answer – he would pass on my remarks to the Home Office and a slagging off for the LibDems in general. That really raised the tone!
In fact I have just written to Jack Straw over his outburst last week on knives. My Lib Dem colleague, Mark Hunter, raised the issue of lengthening sentences for carrying a knife in a public place and Jack just ranted about Lib Dems opposing longer sentences for knife crime. This is misleading Parliament in the first degree (i.e. untrue! and you can check in Hansard from report stage of Bill in Commons). Not only is this assertion factually incorrect but also completely unwarranted. In response to the recent surge in knife crime, a Liberal Democrat sponsored amendment was laid down in the Violent Crime Reduction Bill (on which I lead for my party) that would increase the sentence for carrying of a knife in a public place to seven years. This amendment was not voted on as a Conservative amendment, take before it ,which would have increased the sentence to five years was defeated by the Government. So the truth is – Labour voted against increasing the penalty for carrying a knife in a public place.
The Bill is coming back to the Commons for Lords Amendments next Monday and Labour will be tabling an amendment to make the sentence four years (which is better than the current tariff), and although it doesn’t extend it far enough in my view it is a step in the right direction. I will go into this further when I write up my blog after the debate next Monday.
Tackling crime: be effective, not vindictive
The last of my speeches from conference is now up on my website – the last one is about how to be effective in tackling crime and the choices that have to be made between being effective and being vindictive.
Highgate police to be based in Highgate?
Met with local Haringey police commander, Simon O’Brien this morning.
Major success of the day is his agreement, if suitable premises can be found and the Met Estate Office agrees – that we can locate the Highgate Safer Neighbourhood Team in Highgate itself. He even suggested that I should go out with local officers to check out locations – so will do as soon as possible.
This is all part of the wider Met Estates strategy – and my bottom line in Hornsey and Wood Green (agreed by Simon O’Brien) is that nothing goes before there is something else that has been accepted by the public in its place. It’s all very well wanting to update buildings – and Lord knows there are buildings that are out of the ark in terms of what is needed for police stations – but where police are stationed is absolutely crucial to public confidence and being part of the community. We don’t want any police stations closed just on the promise that a new replacement will come along some time in future – with all the risk that you end up with nothing which that brings.
We move on to staffing levels for the Safer Neighbourhood teams. Although I hear some ‘you never see one’ comments – these are much less than before. However there are a few missing from the full complement and Simon says that his target for full complement is probably by October – but the outer limit set by Sir Ian Blair (London’s top policeman) is end December.
The part of our conversation he enjoys the most is when I ask about local crime statistics etc – and whist not everything is perfect it is clear that the police have had phenomenal success in terms of the increased rate of detection. In the end, it’s detection that it the first step towards conviction!
Also today had a long, long surgery meeting constituents with their individual issues. Off for a break myself shortly, and as usual during August I’ll be largely taking a break from blogging, though this year will put up one or two more contemplative pieces during the month.
Lynne Featherstone 