Labour: Yvette Cooper plans 'tough love' youth hubs to combat crime

A Labour government would set up a "tough love" youth programme to help combat crime, the shadow home secretary has told the Labour party conference.

Yvette Cooper said it would be focused on tackling knife crime and a mental health crisis among young people.

"We need urgent interventions to stop young people getting drawn into crime or exploitation," she said.

The policy deliberately echoes Tony Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" pledge in the 1990s.

"We said it, we mean it, that means we have to act," Ms Cooper said, also promising new laws to crack down on gangs exploiting children.

She told the conference knife crime had risen by 70% in eight years, adding "far too little is done" and a "generation is being failed".

Under cross-department proposals drawn up by Labour, a programme would be rolled out across the UK to identify vulnerable young people, with the aim of stopping them being pulled into lives of crime and violence.

The party has described the policy, which it says would cost £100m a year, as a "key part" of its mission to halve knife crime and youth violence within a decade.

It wants to create 90 youth hubs to bring together services for at-risk young people, modelled on the Sure Start early-years initiative introduced by the Blair government.

Ms Cooper secured her biggest cheer when she reminded delegates she was one of the ministers responsible for launching Sure Start in 1998.

Labour would place youth workers in A&E units, custody centres and pupil referral units to help those with mental health issues or straying into criminal behaviour.

Last year, former Children's Commissioner for England Anne Longfield called for community hubs to be set up to support children most at risk from criminal exploitation.

Ms Cooper said young people had been "totally let down" by the Conservatives, with ministers failing to "recognise the growing vulnerability of many teenagers".

She listed county lines drugs gangs, the Covid pandemic and the rise of damaging content on social media as among the problems teenagers faced.

For too long, she argued, they had been "pushed from pillar to post between local authorities, mental health services, the police and youth offending teams".

She promised "proper local plans" to identify those most at risk and to help them access the support they needed.

For young people who repeatedly caused trouble in their community or were found to be carrying knives, "there also need to be stronger interventions and clear consequences to stop their behaviour escalating and to keep other young people safe", Ms Cooper added.

Labour would "give young people their future back", she said.

In her speech, the shadow home secretary also set out plans to tackle an "epidemic of shoplifting and violence against shop workers", with tougher sentences for attacks and a change in the law.

She said Labour would end a rule brought in by the Conservatives which meant shop thefts under £200 were not investigated.

Labour would also introduce "respect orders" to ban repeat offenders from town centres, while putting 13,000 more neighbourhood police and community support officers back on England and Wales's streets.