Parliament during the summer recess have been relatively rare but 2011 saw two such recalls of the House of Commons. The recall of Parliament is initiated by the government and has to be agreed by the Speaker. The first, on 20 July, was to hear a statement from the Prime Minister and debate the issue of phone hacking. The second, on 11 August, was in response to a series of public disturbances that had started in Tottenham, north London, and
Rt Hon. David Cameron, MP
spread across the city and to other English cities. The disturbances had begun following a series of peaceful protests resulting from the shooting by police officers, of a 29-year-old man named Mark Duggan, in Tottenham on 3 August. As the Prime Minister, Rt Hon. David Cameron, MP, (Con) described events to the Commons: “Initially, there were some peaceful demonstrations
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following Mark Duggan’s death and understandably and quite appropriately the police were cautious about how they dealt with them. However, this was then used as an excuse by opportunist thugs in gangs, first in Tottenham itself, then across London and in other cities. It is completely wrong to say there is any justifiable causal link. It is simply preposterous for anyone to suggest that people looting in Tottenham at the weekend, still less three days later in Salford, were in any way doing so because of the death of Mark Duggan. Young people stealing flat-screen televisions and burning shops—that was not about politics or protest, it was about theft.” Making his statement, the Prime Minister set out a series of actions designed to restore order, repair and restore businesses that had been damaged by the violence and deal with what many Members of the House saw as a deeper issue – the involvement of gangs of young people. The Prime Minister described such gangs as “territorial, hierarchical and incredibly violent” and tasked the Home Secretary with bringing forward “a cross-government programme of action to deal with this gang culture and to report to Parliament in October.” Responding to the statement, the Leader of the Opposition, Rt Hon. Edward Miliband, MP, (Lab) told the House:
“Whatever we disagree on week by week, month by month, today as a House of Commons we stand shoulder to shoulder, united against the vandalism and violence we have seen on our streets. The victims are the innocent people
Rt Hon. Edward Milliband, MP
who live in many of our cities, who have seen their homes and businesses destroyed, their communities damaged and their confidence about their own safety undermined. There can be no excuses, no justification. This behaviour has disgusted us all. It cannot be allowed to stand; we will not allow it to stand.”
He went on to say that politicians had to understand what had caused the disturbances, in order to ensure that they were not repeated, telling the House that “These issues cannot be laid at the door of a single cause or a single government. The causes are complex. Simplistic