Tony McNulty, the policing minister, today said a leaked Home Office letter suggesting that the economic downturn could lead to an increase in crime and support for extremism was "a statement of the blindingly obvious".
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, McNulty said that there was nothing unusual about the draft letter, which was drawn up by officials for Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, to send to Downing Street.
Yesterday the Tories claimed that its contents showed that the government was being complacent about the scale of the problems facing Britain. It was released the day after Alistair Darling warned in Saturday's Guardian that the economic conditions are "arguably the worst" in 60 years.
The document warns that a downturn may lead to:
• an increase in support for "far right extremism and racism",
• a possible increase in support for radical Islamist groups from people who experience racism and possible unemployment,
• an "upward pressure on acquisitive crime", property crime, which increases during a downturn,
• an increase in public hostility to migrants as the job market tightens, and
• a fall in the use of cocaine and drunken disorder in town centres unless drinks companies respond to the downturn by aggressive price cutting.
Asked about the leak this morning, McNulty said he agreed with the assessment of the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, who had said that the letter could be seen as "a statement of the blindingly obvious".
McNulty explained: "Previous experience dictates that, to an extent, when you do have a slowdown in the economy, some aspects of crime may go up. There may be some difficulties in terms of how people interact with people coming into the country … but it's obvious stuff."
The minister said it was "perfectly normal" for the Home Office to keep the prime minister informed about the possible effects of the economic downturn. He said that people would be "astonished" if the Home Office was not looking into these issues.
He also stressed that the draft letter said that "we are better placed now than we were with equivalent problems in the 70s and 90s to tackle them."
