Response to interpellation 2024/25:78 on criminals running HVB homes

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Thanks to Mattias Vepsä for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today!

Mattias Vepsä has asked me what I and the government intend to do so that the police's information on HVB homes can become accessible to municipalities so that we can stop and combat criminals who run such homes.

Serious crime is penetrating further down into the age groups. Gangs recruit children and young people as perpetrators of shootings and bombings. Furthermore, we see far too many examples of unserious and criminal actors running, infiltrating, or having other connections to HVB. It is offensive and unacceptable. Children are harmed, and tax money flows out to criminals. The government is now acting on several fronts to tackle the problem.

Earlier this year, the government gave a mandate to the Inspectorate for Health and Social Services, IVO, to strengthen the supervision against welfare crime within the care sector. That mandate includes developing measures that contribute to the municipalities' work against welfare crime, for example through an increased exchange of information with the municipalities.

At the beginning of October, Ivo also received a special assignment to strengthen the supervision of group homes and HVB (short-term residential care) that receive children and young people. An important part of this is that Ivo shall report on how the authority's ownership and management review can be expanded and regularly carried out in the supervision. Additionally, the assignment includes intensifying cooperation with others, the Police Authority and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, to further strengthen the supervision.

Through these assignments and other measures, the government has allocated 30 million kronor during 2024 to strengthen the agency's work against unserious and criminal actors.

It was against that background that I and Social Services Minister Camilla Waltersson Grönvall recently had a meeting with the leadership of Ivo, the Swedish Police Authority, and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority to establish what concrete measures can be taken in the short term to prevent criminals from conducting this type of activity. We are following this work very closely.

Mattias Vepsäs' question is primarily about the exchange of information between the police and municipalities. An important part of the government's work to push back organized crime is to improve the opportunities for key actors to exchange relevant information with one another. Therefore, we are now removing confidentiality barriers in several parallel tracks.

On July 1 this year, a new law entered into force which entails an obligation for the relevant authorities, municipalities, and unemployment insurance funds to provide information to one another in order to, among other things, counter incorrect payments from the welfare system. The Government has recently submitted a referral to the Council of Legislation regarding that, among other things, municipalities, regions, and a large number of state authorities shall be obliged to provide information to law enforcement to prevent and combat crime. At the beginning of September, I received the report Increased information exchange between authorities, where the investigator proposes a new, general secrecy-breaking provision to enable the sharing of information in a completely different way than today (SOU 2024:63).

The government will continue the work of reviewing the possibilities for key actors to share the information needed in the fight against organized crime. When it comes to information sharing in the concrete cases, I understand the municipalities' demand. However, it is the authorities' responsibility to assess what information can be provided with regard to the applicable rules on public access and secrecy.

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Mattias Vepsä (S)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Gunnar Strömmer, for an interesting answer! We are halfway through the parliamentary term. We had a promise from the government for pattern-breaking measures to tackle serious crime, in particular with the gang violence and the development we have seen in recent years in Sweden. If this is what we agree on. We need to do everything we can so that violence disappears from our streets and squares and our cities all over Sweden.

But despite high-sounding promises, every day in the news we can take part in new shootings, explosions, and murders. The number of children under 15 suspected of involvement in murder plots has more than tripled since last year.

In this context, I want to discuss a matter of the utmost importance here today: that the country's municipalities should be able to place children who have fallen into crime in the HVB facilities that one is forced to outsource today because it is a fully privatized market. None of this has gone in the right direction. It is required that the government does more. When it comes to the fully privatized welfare, organized crime lures very many into making large and quick profits.

Gunnar Strömer's answer to the question I have asked, which we have to debate here today, concerns the fact that we only conduct procurements for 200 million kronor per year in Stockholm. The police revealed earlier this autumn that 18 out of 18 reviewed HVB homes were run by criminals. Crime is occurring at the HVB homes. This list has sparked a great debate, and many questions have been asked to the government in other contexts - here in the chamber and also in written questions as well as from the country's municipalities - regarding whether it is possible to access the police's list so that we can avoid placing more youths in this environment. I believe it is of the utmost importance that we avoid it.

In Gunnar Strömmer's answer, a number of measures that have been made and will be made are pointed out. From the answer, I read that it is quite a lot about new conversations, investigations, and reviews. A referral to the Council of Legislation has been submitted, and a government bill is on its way regarding a new secrecy law - which Gunnar Strömmer very rightly points out will be prepared here in the Riksdag.

Those who take part in this debate should also be aware that there was an idea of a mutual exchange of information in the directives. Had we had a new secrecy law to consider, which could have enabled a mutual exchange of information between the police and the municipality, it might have solved this problem. But as I have understood it, in the legislative product that the Riksdag is to make a decision on, it concerns a one-sided exchange of information, where the police can be granted access to certain information from the school or from other authorities.

We need to act. We must do more to tackle serious crime; I believe we agree on this. But for every day we lose while this government does not do what is required, the gangs will be strengthened.

I therefore want to repeat the question: What does the government intend to do so that the police's information regarding gang criminals who run HVB homes will be shared with the municipalities so that they can make safe placements of children and young people?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! There is no doubt that we must do very much if we are to be able to reverse a development that has been ongoing for a very long time. We must strike against the gross violence, strangle the criminal economy and, of course, stop the recruitment of children and young people into the criminal networks.

We have constantly said that, given how long Sweden ignored the effects of organized crime and of a segregation that has eaten its way into our society, it will take time to reverse the development. We have constantly pointed to other examples. In New York, it took ten years to reverse the development and push back the gangs. In Denmark, it took about the same amount of time. Sweden is very far behind on the curve.

I wish that, when we took over after the Socialdemokraterna, there had been confidentiality-breaking rules in place that would have allowed the police to handle the situation in a different way in the concrete case. That was not the case. Now we are carrying this out.

It is quite true that the investigation we inherited targeted a one-sided obligation - it is not an exchange. It is, in itself, extremely important for crime fighting that this obligation is now implemented, and we have sharpened it further. But this led us to immediately commission another investigation, which has come forward with its proposals for a general secrecy-breaking rule that will mean that information can flow in both directions. Those proposals must be developed; otherwise, we cannot implement them. Now they are here, and they have been referred. We will work on getting them in place as soon as possible.

One thing is certain: The information must go in all directions - school, social services, police. Had the regulations been there, we would have been in a different situation, but they did not do that after eight years of Social Democratic rule. Now we ensure that this happens, and that feels absolutely excellent.

It would also be excellent if the HVB homes had completely different tools to create safe environments so that the children cannot communicate with the outside world in any way via mobile phones and tablets, as well as regarding escapes and unauthorized absences. But that is not the case. The regulations we inherited create unsafe environments and insufficient opportunities for the HVB homes to take phones, limit the use of tablets, carry out body searches, lock up children, or whatever it may be. We are changing this now.

I now mostly receive complaints that we are investigating for too short a time and have too high a tempo, but the reason why we still do it is that we must have a sufficiently good basis to be able to reverse this development. Everything that did not happen during the previous eight years has already happened or is about to happen during this parliamentary term.

I also want to turn against simplifying descriptions. Is this a general anti-privatization debate from the Social Democrats' side, or is there a genuine interest in solving this problem? In that case, Mattias Vepsä should also take into account that some of the more recent actions against HVB homes have concerned publicly owned homes, for example, a company co-owned by different municipalities in Western Sweden. There, an action was recently taken against criminal leadership at the municipal homes.

We must ensure that children and young people who are drifting into crime end up in safe and secure environments. Municipalities must know, regardless of whether they operate their own activities, whether they operate activities together with other municipalities, or whether they contract out these services, that children end up in safe environments where there are no criminal elements.

Now we are implementing all the changes to the regulations that are required to achieve this, and I hope and believe that we can get broad support here in the chamber when it happens. In the meantime, of course, the authorities that have the responsibility must ensure that a supervision and a review take place and that permits are revoked in cases where there are irregularities and criminals on site. That work is underway, and when we meet with the authorities, we do so only in the sense and intention of ensuring that they keep up the pressure in this indispensable activity.

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Mattias Vepsä (S)

Mr. Speaker! We can have a discussion about historical responsibility. I believe it is quite uninteresting for those following this discussion. We are now two years into the government's mandate period. For a long time, we had a situation and a crime development that we did everything in our power to combat. It manifested in more police officers. It resulted in 10,000 more police employees and some 80 criminal law tightenings. During this mandate period, I believe at least 20 of the 25 propositions that we have handled in the Committee on Justice have had an S-stamp at the bottom.

They worked in the chamber and in the Riksdag to ensure that the pace would be high. But the crime development we are seeing has been ongoing for a very long time.

There is talk of a one-sided anti-privatization debate. I do not know if we need to have such a thing, but it is clear that we would need to have an answer on how the government views actually turning off the tap when it comes to welfare crime, because that is a huge source of income for the criminals.

In the Swedish Economic Crime Authority's annual report, one can literally read that it occurs that criminals operate health centers and pharmacies. Criminals do not only exploit our welfare systems but have become a part of the welfare. But it is not enough to investigate and prosecute away the economic crime; it must also be prevented.

In a written question to Camilla Waltersson Grönvall earlier during the autumn, the HVB homes were raised. It is a completely privatized market. There are public operations - that we agree on - but 80 percent is privatized. It is also difficult to have insight and control, depending on secrecy laws and on legislation concerning companies' rights and obligations and how we over decades have had a rather lax attitude towards welfare companies. It is difficult with principles of public access, reporting obligations and to what extent one needs to have auditors. All of this we need to address and rectify.

The Swedish Police Authority warned that it is a huge problem with family-based networks and gang criminals sitting on corporate boards. The Economic Crime Authority said a few weeks later that it is possible to buy the right to run these homes on Blocket. The Government was quite clear in saying that these homes should be closed. Have any HVB homes been closed in Sweden, or do gang criminals continue to run this activity?

I think it would still be appropriate to get some answers from the government. Does the government have its own ideas on how to carry out a regulation of the market? What does the government think about the HVB market moving forward? Will you return to the chamber with relevant legislation so that we can prevent criminals from running HVB operations? Will you help municipalities such as Stockholm and other municipalities around the country, so that they do not have to have a situation where one worries about where these children, who are in an extremely vulnerable situation, will be placed?

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Yes, HVB homes are being closed. The supervision is carried out under Ivo's responsibility. I would wish that Ivo already had a clearer mandate, better resource allocation, and more effective tools.

I do not intend to argue about history either, but I just want to remind Mattias Vepsä that the children who commit these crimes and today are 12, 13, 14, or 15 years old were 2, 3, 4, and 5 years old when the Social Democrats took office. It still requires a certain humility regarding the tools that one has left behind. They are therefore not in place. That is why we are now doing everything we can to change the system so that we can push back this crime in a completely different way.

It is absolutely self-evident that not a single HVB home in this country, regardless of whether it is run by companies, municipalities, or any other actor, shall have connections to or be infiltrated by criminal activity. We shall do everything we can to ensure that it also becomes that way.

We are doing a long series of things. To begin with, we see to it that with the resources and tools that the authorities have, we mobilize the authorities in the supervision. Everything that has criminal connections shall be shut down. That work is ongoing.

Moving forward, we are doing a number of different things. We are strengthening Ivo's capacity with resource allocation. We are strengthening their focus through clear assignments. We are tearing down secrecy barriers. I completely agree that information must flow in both directions. If the police or Ivo in the case at hand – it is their responsibility to answer those questions – judge that not all information can be shared, I truly understand the municipalities' frustration. But our responsibility is to ensure that, in every case, there are rules that enable this, and that is what we are now well on our way to doing.

We are strengthening the control over procurement. It is an incredibly important matter. We have submitted proposals for a coordinated register check at Bolagsverket. We are in discussions with SKR about potentially doing other things to create a more coherent provision of information to municipalities that procure.

We are taking various measures to free up places at Sis. We are reviewing the powers for the HVB homes and the tools to prevent this type of shortage - all in the interest of doing what we both desire, namely to ensure that no children and young people end up in these environments and thereby fall into the clutches of criminals.

If we are to be able to break the grip of organized crime on society, we must do several things simultaneously: strike against the violence, strangle the criminal economy, and break the recruitment of children and young people into the gangs. There is no room for hesitation there, and that is why we are also pressing on all the fronts that are relevant to tackling the problem.

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Mattias Vepsä (S)

Mr. Speaker! I am concerned about the fact that we are rushing ahead. I wonder how one can avoid seeing and living in the reality that very many out in the country's municipalities face every day, where it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage the activities that must be the first line in the promoting and preventive work.

When it comes to a proper, powerfully expanded school with adults who can be there for the children, such as preschool, leisure activities, and civil society – all that which builds a strong society – the government is doing everything but anything else. There, they have chosen to move forward with massive tax cuts for the very richest in our country. At the same time, we have an escalating situation where violence is creeping down in age and more and more young people end up in suspected serious crimes. They should not be there at all from the very beginning.

I think there is much that we Social Democrats and the government can agree on. When it comes to tightening sentences or identifying young people who are drifting into serious crime, we have proposed 1.5 billion for early interventions so that they do not end up in a situation where they need to be placed.

I would like that, going forward, we can join forces to protect certain sectors from the negative effects of privatization. When it comes to the HVB homes, we have another proposal that we think could be worth trying, and that is that the public sector could run just the HVB homes, which are so important in the work of helping young people with substance abuse issues, mental ill-health, and what we have talked about here today, namely serious crime. It is something society needs to have control over. We do not have that today. We hope that we can join forces on the fact that this is something we can work on together.

(Applause)

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Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Mr. Speaker! Let me first say a few words about the strong society and welfare. There was a time, even if it sometimes feels quite far away, when the Social Democrats stood up for the work line and realized that if there are to be more resources to distribute, the resources must also be created. There is only one way to achieve this, and that is by ensuring that it is profitable to work. It is easy to forget that that time existed when one hears how Mattias Vepsä reasons.

It is clear that lower taxes on labor will mean that we will get more resources for the school, elderly care, the police and other important welfare activities in our society.

Next year, municipalities and regions will therefore have 50 billion more to work with, thanks to the fact that we have successfully managed to fight inflation.

We do all this while we invest in family support, invest in school social teams, and add 8 billion extra for social workers so that they can take on the new Social Services Act, which will provide completely different conditions to work preventively in the gap between social interventions and legal interventions - for example.

We are removing the secrecy barriers to enable more effective interaction between school, social services, and the police. We are also making a long series of other reforms in the field of crime policy but also in other areas, not least to once and for all access and strangle the criminal economy, including welfare crime, which both drains taxpayers of economic resources and jeopardizes citizens' trust in the public sector.

We can without doubt take hold of the ambition. I am quite sure that we will continue to discuss exactly which path we shall take to reach the pressing goal.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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