Hove MP concerned about youth crime

Pete Kyle, Labour MP for Hove & Portslade, has spoken about the “epidemic” of youth crime plaguing seaside towns, blaming cuts to public services which have left vulnerable children with little support.

Mr Kyle described as “shocking” the spate of crimes including shoplifting, arson and knife crime carried out by children travelling the rail line between Worthing and Hove

Mr Kyle said: “The challenge we have always had is how to help young people make the right choices at the right time. That involves support at school, help sometimes for parents, as well as public services having the capacity and time to be there when young people need them most. Youth services have been cut by more than half, police have seen staff cuts, the budget for local authorities has been cut. The biggest cuts are to community policing”.

Figures from youth charity YMCA detailed how local authority spending across the country totalled £379 million in 2020/21. But this represented a £1.1 billion cut in youth services compared with 2010/11 which is more than a 70% decrease.

Funding to the police service fell from £19.3 billion in 2009/10 to just under £16.4 billion seven years later. It has risen year on year since and stands at £24.9 billion in 2021/22, according to HM Treasury data.

The latest data released by the Home Office showed there were 142,759 police officers in England and Wales in June 2022 compared with 143,734 in March 2011, but during that period, the population of England and Wales has increased by 3.5 million. Consequently, there are now 235 officers per 100,000 people compared with 264 in 2011, a real-terms reduction in the number of officers over the decade of 11%.

Mr Kyle has put forward ideas for harsher sentences for adults involving children in crime, as well as “empowering” victims of crime and protecting neighbourhoods from persistent antisocial behaviour.

For instance, he tabled an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that any crime where an adult involved a child in criminal exploitation, such as county lines drug trafficking, would get a 14-year prison sentence.