England riots: Clegg and May speeches and reaction – live

Rolling coverage as Nick Clegg and Theresa May set out their plans in the aftermath of last week’s riots 9.08am: Clegg is now making a series of announcements. • The Cabinet Office will commission research into the riots and the their causes. (Clegg actually mentioned this in his speech on Saturday – see 8.48am – but no one noticed.) • An inquiry will be set up. Clegg did not actually call it an inquiry – he said it was a communites and victims panel – but that that’s what it is. It will be chaired by someone independent and it will be able to make recommendations. It will sit for about six to nine months and it will report to all three party leaders. But it won’t be set up under the Public Inquiries Act, which means it won’t have the power to force witnesses to give evidence. • A community payback scheme will be set up in every area affected by the riots. See 8.38am for more. • Extra money will be provided to ensure that all victims who want the chance to confront the offenders who attacked them will get the chance to do so. • From March 2012 every offender who leaves jail will go straight into the work programme, the government scheme designed to find work for the unemployed. They will be met at the prison gates, Clegg says. 9.04am: Nick Clegg is speaking at his press conference now. He says he has visited areas affected by the rioting. Some of the response has been “heroic”, he says. Among the optimism, he cites Manchester, where more people were involved in the clean-up operation than in the rioting. Hope and optimism and more powerful than fear and pessimism, he says. Clegg says that as more information comes out about the court cases, some myths are being dispelled. For example, the news coverage suggested many rioters were very young. But only 21% of those in court are under 18. And the papers suggested many women were involved. But more than 90% of those in court have been male. 8.57am: My colleague Alan Travis has sent me a line about what we can expect from Theresa May’s police reform speech at 10am. May has written to Sir Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary asking him to provide clearer guidance to forces on handling riots and public disorder. This is expected to include an massive expansion in police riot training as well as clear guidance on robust tactics to restore order. The home secretary will say that public order policing is becoming more unpredictable and faster moving and police tactics have to be as adaptable as possible to the circumstances to keep the peace for all. She will also argue that the last 10 days make the case for police reform even more urgent than ever and she will reject demands for a pause or U-turn on police budgets. She will describe policing as a noble profession and say that we owe all police officers a debt of gratitude for returning order to the streets last week. “So when we ask questions about the success of a policing operation or ask how we can make the police more effective, more efficient or more accountable to the public – this is not an attack on the men and women of the police,” she will say. “One thing is clear: the experience of the last 10 days makes the case for police reform more urgent than ever,” she is to argue, adding that the introdcution of police and crime commissioners is even more important when the police are being asked to fight crime on a tighter budget. May will make clear that taking Britain out of the economic danger zone by reducing the budget deficit however still remains a higher priority and scaling back police cuts is not an option. 8.48am: Yesterday, in my blog about the Cameron and Miliband speeches, I said that Nick Clegg had failed, so far, to say anything particularly distinctive on the riots. That is true in the sense that he hasn’t said anything that has fully grabbed the attention of the media. But that doesn’t mean he has been silent. He made a speech on the subject on Saturday that is on the Lib Dem website. Mostly it was very sensible. Clegg made a liberal case for a tough stance on law and order (“As a liberal, I see violence and disorder of this kind as an attack on liberty, on the freedom for individuals to live and trade in peace in their own communities”), he said the government was commissioning independent research into the riots because it was important to understand what happened, and he said it was important for the government to give everyone opportunities and a stake in society. But there’s one line in the speech that Clegg may regret. While of course we have had to act swiftly and decisively, we have resisted the temptation to engage in overnight policy or instant announcements. With Cameron banging on about water cannon and rubber bullets, Grant Shapps suggesting that it should be easier to evict tenants from social housing if they have been involved in rioting and Iain Duncan Smith floating the idea of taking benefits away from convicted rioters who do not go to jail, this is probably a line that Clegg will not want to repeat today. 8.38am: Yesterday D avid Cameron and Ed Miliband delivered lengthy speeches about the riots and their causes . Today we’re going to hear from Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, and Theresa May, the home secretary. I’ll be blogging both events live, as well as covering any reaction. Clegg is up first, at 9am. As Polly Curtis reports in the Guardian today , he will announce plans for a “riot payback scheme”. He is giving a press conference, rather than a full speech, but the Cabinet Office have already released some of his comments in advance. Crime and lawlessness deprive ordinary, decent people of their freedom. Violence and disorder are an attack on liberty, on the freedom of individuals to live and work in peace in their own communities. I am passionately convinced that swift, strong justice needs to be done when people break the laws and moral rules of society. I want offenders to be punished – and to change their ways.Victims of crime are only truly protected if punishment leads to criminals not committing crime again. Criminals must be punished and then made to change their ways. That’s why those people who behaved so despicably last week should have to look their victims in the eye. They should have to see for themselves the consequences of their actions and they should be put to work cleaning up the damage and destruction they have caused so they don’t do it again. We want people to be punished for their wrongdoing. We also want them to stop doing wrong. We want their future behaviour to change. We need punishment that sticks And then May is speaking at 10am. She is giving a speech on police reform, and then taking questions. As Alan Travis and Allegra Stratton report , she will give details of the government’s “security fightback”, including plans for thousands more police officers to undergo riot training. UK riots Theresa May Nick Clegg Crime Police UK criminal justice Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 16, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.