Stephen McPartland Member of Parliament for Stevenage commented, "I know the arson attacks place fear in the Bedwell area but we would like to once again reassure people that what happened in Bedwell is not the same as what’s happened in London and other cities. In those cases there have been groups of 300 to 400 people but here it was a small number of people."

Stephen added, "I have offered to go out on patrol with the police in Stevenage, tomorrow night or Friday afternoon and evening, to try and reassure residents that Stevenage is safe and we are not seeing any gangs of youths engaging in copycat behaviour.”