Good morning everyone.
Thank you very much for coming here to Number 10 today to discuss
tackling the issue that is a top priority for Government and for
the organisations who are represented here around this table. But
perhaps more important, it’s an issue that families, and young
people and communities across the country, are concerned about
and want to see us tackling.
And in the recent months we’ve seen an appalling number of young
lives that have been cut short or devastated by serious violent
crime, including a number of horrifying incidents which took
place just over this weekend. And as we look at what’s happened
of course what we also see is that in many cases the perpetrators
of these crimes are as young as our victims. And this is
something that has to be of deep concern to us all.
It is a challenge that collectively affects us as a society, and
it is a challenge that as a society we need to rise up to and to
act to deal with.
And not deal with as individuals in isolation - as single
organisations or single politicians or individuals in the
community - but actually dealing with it in a great,
co-ordinated, wide-reaching and long-term effort. With all of us
coming together to address this issue.
Of course we would always make sure that the resources and tools
are there to be able to apprehend and deal with those who are
carrying and using knives, and the police have what they need to
do – but we cannot simply arrest ourselves out of this problem.
This is a wider problem. It’s more deep seated and we need to
have a more coordinated effort in response to it.
If you think about it, if it was a devastating disease that was
affecting young people yes, we would be treating the symptoms but
we would also be asking ourselves the question of what is the
underlying cause.
And that is that in relation to this issue we need to take the
same approach to the cancer of serious youth violence.
It is more than just law enforcement.
And that is what this week’s summit is about. It’s about bringing
together people from different aspects of society, with different
responsibilities ,with different experience to ensure that we can
build on the work that’s being done as in the Serious Violence
Summit, and the Youth Endowment Fund, but also to make sure we
come together in this multiagency, whole-community approach to
serious youth violence.
And that’s where of course this approach, often referred to as
the “public health approach”, is one of the things we want to be
discussing this week.
That’s where everybody is working together across the system in
multiple agencies - sharing information - but crucially making
sure that every contact counts.
And to help make that happen, today we’ve launched a consultation
on a public duty that would underpin such an approach.
I can also announce that we are setting up a new Ministerial
Taskforce that will co-ordinate the government’s role and make
sure all departments are playing their part. It needs, again, to
be a collective approach across government as it is between
government and other organisations.
And there will be a new Serious Violence Team which will be set
up in the Cabinet Office as well which will have representatives
from across Government to ensure join-up, and will also be
well-placed to assist local areas as they build operational
equivalents in their own Violence Reduction Units.
In a moment I’ll ask the Home Secretary to talk a little more
about the size and scope of the challenge we face and the work we
have already undertaken to tackle it.
But first we will hear from some of the experts who have joined
us today.
I’m grateful to everybody around the table because everybody has
come with expertise and understanding and experience of this
issue. We have sitting around the table people who have delivered
transformational change and real reductions in violence across
the UK and the US.
So let me introduce Professor Mark Bellis, from Public Health
Wales, and Dr Jens Ludwig, from the Chicago and New York Data
Labs. I know you’ve travelled to be here today so thank you -
particularly to Ludwig for travelling as far as you have to be
with us here today. We want to be able to learn from you and I
know that in the chat that I’ve had with Mark in the past about
the different roles and the importance of the work that you’ve
done, and we very much look forward to learning from both of you.
Nothing that is said today of course will bring back the young
people whose lives have been so cruelly taken by serious
violence.
But what we can do today is to send a very clear message that
“this must stop” and a very clear message that collectively we
will do everything we can to make sure that it stops.
And we can begin to shape this new approach that will meet the
scourge of youth violence head on, so that more families are
spared the unimaginable suffering that sadly too many families
have endured in recent months.
