Criminal Justice Bill (Sixth sitting)
Chris Philp ExcerptsThursday 11th January 2024
(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 January 2024 - (11 Jan 2024)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
On a point of order, Ms Bardell. First, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Secondly, for the record, I just clarify that the maximum sentence for a possession offence under section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 is four years. This morning, I inadvertently said two years.
The Chair
I thank the Minister for that point of order.
Clause 10
Maximum penalty for offences relating to offensive weapons
Alex Norris
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell, and to resume proceedings. They were very good-natured this morning, and I am sure they will be similarly good-natured this afternoon.
Clause 10, like clause 9, relates to the Government’s consultation on banning or restricting sale or possession of knives. As we did this morning, we support that important venture. Clause 10 increases the maximum penalty from six months’ to two years’ imprisonment for the offences of importation, manufacture, sale and supply, and possession of a weapon, flick knife or gravity knife. This is a welcome change that we support. We must send a clear message that those who commit such offences, whether to supply offensive weapons or to profit from them, are not beyond the reach of the law.
It is also welcome to see that these offences will be triable either way, and therefore to provide the police more time to investigate alleged offences without the pressure of the current time limit of six months for prosecution. It is right that we give the police the flexibility to ensure that they can gather the necessary evidence to secure convictions and ensure that the full impact of these changes can be felt. Clause 10, taken with clause 9, is very much a step in the right direction.
I want to use this opportunity to press the Minister, through amendment 54, on an area that I think is missing from the Bill: proper age checks for those who are buying bladed products. Again, similar to the debate we had on clause 9, it may be that the Government want to look at this issue in a different way. As it stands, age checks must be carried out on delivery of bladed products to ensure that those receiving such items are of the correct age, but too often we hear of incidents where that has not happened, and the consequences can be fatal. This is an area worth revisiting.
I refer back to the case that I raised this morning: the tragic murder of Ronan Kanda. During the trial of those convicted of Ronan’s murder, it was revealed that the weapons used in the attack had been bought online by the perpetrators. They were just 16 years old, so they should not have had those products. They used another person’s ID and collected from the local post office on the day of the attack. Those are breaches of the law in and of themselves, which led to a devastating breach of the law later that day. The age verification process clearly failed there, and just hours later there were tragic consequences. This is just one incident, but it is part of a wider problem, which, if we do not have really good controls on, could mean knives and blades falling into the hands of children who cannot have, or have not, thought of the danger to themselves and others that comes with such weapons. We know that a failing process creates that vulnerability. It is a weakness in the legal framework.
Amendment 54 therefore seeks to raise the penalty—from just a fine—for those who deliver bladed products or hand over bladed products or articles to someone under 18. It would increase that penalty, which I believe would create more rigour in the age check. That in turn should help prevent knives from falling into the wrong hands; it could address that weakness. This issue is perhaps a good reminder of the challenges that our shopworkers face, although we have tabled new clauses that I suspect might give us the chance to discuss that matter, so I will not do so today.
Being able to verify someone’s age and deny someone a knife they are trying to buy seems like a friction point to me, so it is right that there should be counterpart legal support, but that that really good quality verification must happen, or there is real danger. My attempt to have age checks carried out diligently is one way of doing it, but it is not the only way. Campaigners rightly want this change. If it is not to be this change on the face of the Bill, I hope we might hear from the Minister about how it can be strengthened and how we can ensure really good confidence in that verification process.
Chris Philp
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for setting out his amendment and his views, as he did this morning in such a thoughtful and considered way.
I turn first to the substance of the clause. It increases the maximum penalty from six months’ to two years’ imprisonment for the offences of possessing, importing, manufacturing, selling or supplying prohibited offensive weapons when they are sold to those under the age of 18. We take seriously the sale of knives to under-18s, so the increase in the penalty from six months to two years is important.
We do not want people under 18 to be sold knives; we have heard about all kinds of tragic examples of them using knives to commit homicide. On 27 September, a tragic case in my own borough, Croydon, involved a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Elianne Andam, who was brutally murdered with a knife at 8.30 in the morning. The alleged perpetrator was himself only 17 years old. Preventing such knives from getting into the hands of young people is critical. That is the purpose behind the clause.
The clause relates to selling knives to those under 18, but the amendment speaks to a slightly different point: delivering knives to those under 18. Delivering something is obviously different from selling it. If someone is selling it, they are a shop, a retailer, and the person responsible for the transaction. Acting as a delivery agent—whether the Post Office, FedEx, UPS or some such—means delivering a parcel on behalf of someone else, which is a slightly different responsibility. That is why the law as it stands sets out in the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 some measures to address the issue. The delivery company must have arrangements in place, together with the seller, to ensure that the items are not delivered into the hands of someone under 18. The penalty for delivery is an unlimited fine.
Some new guidelines have been set out by the Sentencing Council. They came into force on 1 April 2023. Organisations now face fines with a starting point of between £500 and £1 million. That is a starting point, so they can be very substantial fines indeed when applied to a corporate body. Individuals can, of course, be fined as well. It is important to make it clear that corporate bodies can be liable for such fines, as I said a second ago, because they are obviously capable of paying much larger amounts of money than an individual.
Amendment 54 raises an important issue. The case that the hon. Member for Nottingham North referred to is relevant—I completely accept that—but I think that the changes made in the Offensive Weapons Act and the Sentencing Council guidelines that came into effect less than a year ago strike the right balance on the delivery of such items. For the sale of items, however, we are increasing the custodial maximum up to two years.
In addition, the provisions of the Online Safety Act, which will be commenced into full force once the various codes of practice are published by Ofcom, will place duties on things such as online marketplaces, which historically have not been regulated. Online marketplaces have been facilitating, for example, the sale of knives to young people or the sale of illegal knives—the kind of knives that we are banning. Those online marketplaces will fall into the remit of the Online Safety Act, so the online space will get clamped down on a great deal.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
For the sake of clarity, will the Minister confirm that if a shop owner sells offensive weapons, the shop owner will be liable and not the person who works on the premises—obviously, they should not be held accountable for a shop owner’s decision to sell the weapon.
Chris Philp
On the sale, it could be either an individual who makes a sale and/or the business. A defence of coercion is available generally, however—I am not sure whether it is in common or statute law. If a shop worker were coerced into selling something, or compelled to do so in some way, that might be a defence if they were accused. Coercion certainly would be a defence in that case.
The increase in the maximum sentence up to two years makes a lot of sense. I have referred to the provisions in the Online Safety Act. On delivery—when someone is simply delivering as opposed to selling—the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 broadly strikes the right balance, but I certainly agree with the shadow Minister that anyone involved in the supply or delivery of knives has a very strong moral obligation, in addition to the legal ones I have set out, not to supply under-18s, because we have seen very tragic consequences, such as the cases in Wolverhampton and Croydon, and tragically many others as well.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer, which has given me a significant degree of comfort. The point we will hold under review is the nature of delivery companies and the nature of their employment. Some of that is third party and some involves self-employment, which has been a matter of debate in this place on many occasions. I fear that that weakens to some degree the chain of accountability. Nevertheless, very significant fines are in place, as the Minister said. I wonder whether a custodial sentence backstop would strengthen the provisions a little further, but given that the current guidelines are relatively new, as the Minister said, we ought to give them time to work.
The point about online marketplaces was important and has been of interest to the shadow Home Secretary. We are very keen that that should happen as soon as possible. We are grateful for that assurance from the Minister. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11
Encouraging or assisting serious self-harm
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend is not operating “Weekend at Bernie’s”-style—I promise. That is a dated reference. She talked about people being the same age, so maybe that will be the test of that.
We will welcome the point around children, but it must be seen in the context of what my hon. Friend said. The Minister has said she is satisfied on both points. We say, “We will see whether that holds”. We need those provisions to be enacted and to see the laws on the statute book used properly on deepfakes, otherwise we will have to return to this point. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
A mendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chris Philp
I beg to move amendment 48 in schedule 2, page 85, line 32, at end insert—
“Armed Forces Act 2006 (c. 52)
1 In the Armed Forces Act 2006, after section 177D insert—
‘177DA Photographs and films to be treated as used for purpose of certain offences
(1) This section applies where a person commits an offence under section 42 as respects which the corresponding offence under the law of England and Wales is an offence under section 66AA(1), (2) or (3) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (taking or recording of intimate photograph or film).
(2) The photograph or film to which the offence relates, and anything containing it, is to be regarded for the purposes of section 177C(3) (and section 94A(3)(b)(ii)) as used for the purpose of committing the offence (including where it is committed by aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring).’”
This amendment amends the Armed Forces Act 2006 to make provision equivalent to the amendment to the Sentencing Code made by paragraph 19(2) of Schedule 2 to the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 36 and 50
Government new clause 10—Power to seize bladed articles etc: armed forces.
Government new clause 11—Stolen goods on premises (entry, search and seizure without warrant): armed forces.
Government new clause 12—Powers to compel attendance at sentencing hearing: armed forces.
Chris Philp
I hesitate to say that these are technical amendments; given the shadow Minister’s comments this morning, I do not want to unduly provoke him. However, this series of amendments simply extends some of the measures within the Bill to the service police —the military police—of all branches of the armed forces and to the service justice system. The relevant measures are: the power to seize bladed articles, contained in clause 18; the power to enter property to seize stolen goods without a warrant, contained in clause 19; the power to compel an offender to attend their sentencing hearing, contained in clause 22; and making grooming a statutory aggravating factor for sexual offences against a child, contained in clause 23.
Amendment 48 to schedule 2 also ensures that the offences relating to intimate images provided for in the schedule also fully read across to the service justice system. Our armed forces do incredible work, of course, but we must ensure that the law applies to those serving in uniform as much as to members of the public. That is why we are proposing these important—although also technical—amendments.
Alex Norris
We are getting to the witching hour on a Thursday, but the Minister tempts me around technical amendments. The point that I was making earlier was merely about whether we were using the same definition. I would also perhaps dispute that a technical amendment could be “important”, because I think that, at that point, it would cease to be technical. However, as I say, I think that that is a distinction of classification rather than substance, and that these are sensible amendments—although I would not say that they were technical. There are other issues that will come up in those later clauses that the Minister mentioned, but we will debate them, I am sure, in due course.
Amendment 48 agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 14
Criminal liability of bodies corporate and partnerships where senior manager commits offence
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
The identification doctrine is a legal test used to determine whether the actions and mind of a corporate body can be regarded as those of a natural person. The concept has existed in common law since 1971, but, since then, companies and corporations have grown in size and complexity, which has made it more difficult to determine who a controlling mind might be. That means that employees of large corporations with significant control over business areas are none the less not considered sufficiently controlling under that common-law legal test originally dating from 1971. Therefore, the corporations for which they work might not be held criminally liable where we think they should be.
Substantial progress was made to address the issue in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which put the identification doctrine on a new statutory footing, making provisions to ensure that corporate liability can exist where a senior manager commits an offence while acting in the scope of their actual or apparent authority. However, because of the scope of that Act, it only applied to economic offences.
During the passage of that Act through Parliament in the last calendar year, the Government committed to expanding the statutory identification doctrine that I have just described—the expanded version that applies to large companies and the many senior managers in them—to all kinds of crime. Clause 14 makes good on that Government commitment by repealing the relevant sections of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and replacing them with the identification doctrine applying to all crime and not just economic crime.
I am sure that all of us here want to make sure that when large corporates commit offences, they are held to account and prosecuted. The common law provisions, dating back to 1971, are too restrictive. They do not go wide enough or reflect the fact that modern-day corporations have quite a few senior managers taking decisions. The clause takes what has been done already for economic crime and applies it to all criminal law. On that basis, I hope it commands the immediate and enthusiastic assent of the Committee this afternoon.
Alex Norris
I am not sure what “immediate” means in that context—must I instantly print off clause 14 and staple it to my back? Nevertheless, we support the clause. We supported similar provisions in the passage of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, and this finishes off the job. It is actually very pertinent to the week we have had in Parliament, because it is safe to say that this week has been dominated by the outrage about the Post Office/Horizon scandal. There is a legitimate expectation among the public and in this place that when such things happen, individuals and entities will be held accountable, so I do not think we will find much to disagree with. Obviously, the provisions will not apply in the case of the Post Office/Horizon scandal, but they will do so in the future.
The Post Office/Horizon scandal is exceptionally important. There will be others that come through and find their moment, for whatever reason—whether they relate to Hillsborough, Primodos, sodium valproate, surgical meshes or anything covered by the Cumberlege review. We need much quicker action. The Post Office/Horizon scandal is ongoing, presumably because the major elements of perpetration have already taken place. They would not be in scope of the Bill, so I would be interested in the Minister’s views. Other than that, I am happy to give the clause our support.
Chris Philp
In common with most legislative provisions, these provisions are prospective, rather than retrospective; we legislate retrospectively only rarely. I understand that some Post Office-specific measures may be brought before Parliament. There will be ample opportunity to debate them and to seek to right the very grave injustice that has clearly been committed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)
Criminal Justice Bill (Fifth sitting)
Chris Philp ExcerptsThursday 11th January 2024
(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 January 2024 - (11 Jan 2024)
Alex Norris
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I hope to follow your instruction to be free-wheeling as far as I physically can.
As the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), said on Second Reading, we support this legislation. This is likely to be the final chance during this Parliament for us to legislate in the area of crime, policing and criminality, and there is much to do. There are very many good things in this legislation, so the bulk of my contributions on the initial clauses, and my amendments more generally, seek clarity and will give the Minister a chance to put certain things on the record, rather than challenging the principle of the Bill.
As we start line-by-line consideration, it is important to recognise that the public expect more from the Government and this place on crime. Ninety per cent of crimes go unsolved and the charge rate has dropped by two thirds. That means that a person who commits a crime is less than half as likely to be caught as they were in 2010, and the public feel that very significant change. Of course, that is before we get to the woeful backlogs in the court system, and what they mean for victims and the likelihood of successful prosecution. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North will no doubt cover that issue in due course.
To that record is added low confidence in policing, the disastrous legacy that we still feel of the cut of 20,000 officers, 10,000 fewer police on the frontline, and the fact that 50% of the public—a number that has doubled—say they never see a uniformed presence in their community, so there is clearly much to do. Restoring policing and justice in this country must be a national priority. We welcome in most part what the legislation offers, and most of our discord lies with what is not in the Bill and the missed opportunities. We will seek to add those things in due course.
Clause 1 relates to articles for use in serious crime. Serious and organised crime is a growing menace in our country. Organised crime is often left out of the debate about community safety. The way crime is counted pushes organised crime, and particularly fraud, to the fringes of the debate, but it is a growing enterprise and it has to be tackled head on. By its nature, it is fast moving and shapeshifting. We are in the fourth industrial revolution—an era of significant technological change at breathtaking pace—and it is crucial that we seek to keep pace. Given the nature of law and legislation, that is hard, but we have to keep pace as best we can. We know that the tools that criminals, particularly violent criminals, use to conceal their work are ever changing, so we must change to meet that need.
Clause 1 criminalises the possession of items that can be used in serious crime, and my amendments relate to that. Without pre-empting the clause 2 stand part debate, the sorts of items we are talking about include 3D printer firearms templates, tablet presses and vehicle concealments. We heard in the evidence sessions that such items are being used by some of the most serious criminals in this country and those who facilitate their work, and it is right to address that.
I turn to amendment 51, which stands in my name. Clause 1(3) says:
“It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the person did not intend or suspect that the relevant article would be used in connection with any serious offence.”
Basically, if the police arrest someone and want to charge them with possession of one of the items specified in clause 2, the person can say, “I didn’t know it was going to be used in this way.” My amendment would delete that provision. It is of a probing nature—I do not intend to put it to a Division—but I want to hear from the Minister why the clause has been written in such a way. It is not without precedent, but we would not routinely specify on the face of a Bill the defence that a person facing a criminal allegation could use; that would be a matter for them.
Crucially, the burden will be on the prosecutor to prove that a crime has been committed. We know from clause 1(1) that a successful conviction for the offence requires prosecutors to prove to a criminal standard that, first, the person facing the charge possessed the article in question and that, secondly, they did so in circumstances that could reasonably give rise to suspicion that it would be used to commit a serious offence. The burden is on the prosecutor to prove that, so I am keen to understand why we need to specify on the face of the Bill that a defendant could make the defence that they
“did not intend or suspect that the relevant article would be used in connection with any serious offence.”
Is subsection (3) not just subsection (1) turned inside out? On that basis, is it necessary? If subsection (1) describes the alleged crime, surely it is axiomatic that the defence would be the opposite. Does subsection (3) need to be on the face of the Bill? Could the Minister explain that? We are in danger of asking people to prove negatives, which is harder. Specifying that defence may well be relied on by authorities in the future, and if an individual struggles to prove intent, which can be quite hard, or a lack of intent, which, frankly, is even harder, it could be challenging for the justice process further on. I am keen to understand the Minister’s perspective.
Amendment 52 would have the same effect on clause 3(3) as amendment 51 would have on clause 1(3): it would remove clause 3(3). The arguments for doing so are the ones I have just made.
The final amendment I have tabled in this group is amendment 55 to clause 1. Clause 1(1) relates to possession, and subsection (4) explains what “possession” means in this context. It says that
“if it is proved that a relevant article—
(a) was on any premises at the same time as the accused, or
(b) was on premises of which the accused was the occupier or which the accused habitually used otherwise than as a member of the public,
the court may assume that the accused possessed the relevant article”—
that is how possession is proven, and I would argue that is quite a broad definition—
“unless the accused shows that they did not know of its presence on the premises or that they had no control over it.”
That is what my amendment seeks to test, because I do not think the intention of the clause is to sweep up people for being in the presence of an article that was not theirs.
My concern relates particularly to shared accommodation. I lived in shared accommodation for a couple of years before I met my wife, and for a period of time it was with people I did not really know: I did not know what they did for a living; I did not know their personal characters; and, to be honest, I did not have an awful lot of engagement with them. Many came and went, and the communal areas were largely not used, but it would not have been out of the question for someone to leave work equipment around. It would not have been impossible for someone acting in bad faith to have one of the items detailed in clause 2 in a communal area, and then to have said that it was another person who was living there or that another person at some point had touched that item in order to move it and put something else next to it. Whose article it was—and therefore who is responsible and who may well have committed an offence under clause 1—could then become quite a challenging question. There needs to be more clarity that, in such circumstances, an individual would not have committed a crime.
That is what amendment 51 seeks to add. I do not intend to labour the point all the way to a Division, but I hope the Minister will put on the record that that is not how he sees the provisions working, and that he will give the Committee some degree of comfort on how such circumstances will be avoided.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Dame Angela, as it will be in the Committee’s sittings in coming days.
I will not try to respond to the shadow Minister’s opening remarks in any detail, as we debated the wider issues on Second Reading, but I will observe in passing that we have record numbers of police officers, and overall crime, measured by the crime survey on a like-for-like basis, is 56% lower today than it was in 2010.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
That must be the only place where there are extra police.
Chris Philp
The fine city of Stockton.
I thank the shadow Minister for the thoughtful, reasonable tone that he adopted in discussing the amendments and in his opening remarks. I am sure that tone will characterise the exchanges throughout the Committee’s proceedings.
As the shadow Minister mentioned, clauses 1 to 4 criminalise the possession, importation, making, adaptation or supply of certain specified articles, where they can be used for serious criminal purposes, including items such as pill presses used to manufacture illegal pills and the templates for producing 3D firearms, about which the National Crime Agency and others are increasingly concerned.
As with strict liability offences, these offences entitle a prosecution to start with the assumption that the accused would have known what the articles were concerned with. I have mentioned a couple of those articles; there are very few, if any, legitimate uses for them.
The shadow Minister posed a reasonable question, asking why we have constructed the burden of proof in the way we have. Why say it is for the defendant to demonstrate that they had a legitimate purpose, rather than the other way round? The reason is because these articles have pretty much no legitimate uses other than for criminal purposes. Why would someone have a template to construct a 3D firearm other than for criminal purposes? There is no innocent use for that article that I can think of. The situation is similar for pill presses, unless it were a pharmaceutical company. To answer the shadow Minister’s fundamental and foundational question, that is why the burden of proof has been constructed as it has.
Amendments 51 and 52 would remove the ability for the defendant to expressly advance as a defence that they did not know about the purpose of the article, and did not know they were possessing it and so on. If the amendments were agreed to, those defences would not be available and the clause, as amended, would make these strict liability offences, with no defence that could be offered. The effect of the amendments would actually be to make the clause less favourable to the defendant.
Amendment 55 addresses items found on a premises. As the shadow Minister pointed out, at the end of clause 1(4), there is a defence that the person did not know about the item’s presence on the premises or they had no control over it; it can be one or the other, and does not have to be both. I will take the give example of shared accommodation, where people share a flat or a house. Clearly, if someone’s flatmate possessed one of these illegal articles and the flatmate did not know about it, or even if they knew about it but did not have control over it—it can be one or the other; it does not have to be both—that would then be a defence available to them. I can certainly give the assurance that he requested.
At the bottom of page 1, the clause provides that where flatmates are sharing accommodation, if one of the flatmates possessed the articles, and another flatmate had nothing to do with any offending and either did not know about the articles—or, even if they knew about them, had no control over them—that second flatmate would not be guilty of an offence, because the defence set out would be available to them. I hope that that gives the shadow Minister the assurance that he wanted.
Dame Angela, shall I save my wider remarks about the clauses for the stand part debate in the second group, or would you rather I addressed them now?
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Minister for his full answer. I am deeply disappointed that I could not draw him on wider issues, but I suspect that on a long enough timeline, he will relent. The Minister must think about the fact that he is tempted to tell us that, on crime, we have never had it so good. That is something that we will test with the general public at some point this year, and he may be disappointed. We are ready on any day of his choosing—the sooner the better.
Alex Norris
That is a very reasonable correction.
I am grateful for the Minister’s response, and in particular the comfort on amendments 51 and 52, which relate to clause 1(3) and clause 3(3). I am not 100% convinced that a defendant’s ability to say that an item was not theirs has been removed; they could say that routinely, as they frequently do to police up and down the country in relation to various matters. Nevertheless, we would not want to weaken the defence, and the Minister’s point about that is enough for me to withdraw the amendments.
I am also grateful for the assurance on subsection (4), which it is important to have on the record. This is an issue—perhaps this is not for the face of the Bill—that will have to be thought about in a policing sense. The way the clause draws possession is quite broad: being on the same premises as something that someone used habitually. For example, perhaps a small group of people use a social club routinely and are engaged in a joint endeavour of committing crime. That would be quite hard for the police to identify. Probably the most likely outcome is that all individuals get charged, but there will be challenges. Again, that is probably not for the face of the Bill, but it may be something that the Government need to come back when it comes to its operation as a practical measure. They will need to work with the police to ensure that it is a practical power, because we want it to be used. We do not want the police to think it is too complicated or too broad to use, because it is very important.
On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chris Philp
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 1, page 2, line 1, after “means” insert “—
(a) in England and Wales,”.
This amendment and amendments 15 to 18 extend the offence under this clause to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 15 to 17.
Government amendment 41.
Clause stand part.
Government amendments 18 and 19.
Clause 2 stand part.
Government amendments 20 to 22.
Clauses 3 and 4 stand part.
Government amendment 40.
Government amendment 49.
Government amendment 44.
Chris Philp
As we have discussed, clauses 1 to 4 introduce new offences to criminalise the importation, manufacture, modification, supply, offer to supply and possession of particular articles used in serious and organised crime. They currently apply to England and Wales only, but after consultation with the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Government tabled amendments 14 to 22 and 41 to extend the criminal offences to the whole of the UK. This follows a request from the devolved Administrations, which we are happy to agree to.
Clause 2 contains a delegated power for the Secretary of State to amend the list of items covered by the clause. At the outset, we cover the templates for 3D-printed firearms, pill presses and concealed compartments. This creates a power, using an affirmative statutory instrument that is subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, to add additional items as we become aware of them. It is impossible for us sitting here to foresee or anticipate what items criminals may come up with in the future, so it is important to have this power to future-proof against criminal innovation.
The practical effect of amendments 40, 44 and 49 is to add these offences to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which means that when a person is found guilty of an offence, they will automatically be considered guilty of having a criminal lifestyle when the court is making a confiscation order. I am sure that the Committee will agree that when someone is involved in serious criminal activity, we would want the proceeds of that criminal activity, particularly if it is serious organised crime, to fall into the scope of the POCA regime. I have already mentioned the items included, which are listed in clause 2, and I have also referenced the affirmative statutory instrument process for adding additional items in the future.
On clause 3, it is important that we include measures on vehicle theft in the Bill. I am sure that all of us have been contacted by constituents who are concerned about their cars being stolen, particularly from their home address. Criminals do that using various forms of technology that enable them to either pick up the signal from a key fob, or hack into a vehicle’s control system, disable the immobiliser, and activate and unlock the vehicle. They then drive off. Unfortunately, that is relatively prevalent.
There are things that constituents can do, such as put their key fob into a so-called Faraday bag—a little bag with an iron mesh around it—but that could be stolen. More modern vehicles, particularly in the past two or three years, have better security measures. Nonetheless, we parliamentarians want to do everything we can to prevent this kind of technology falling into criminal hands. That is why we are providing for two new criminal offences relating to vehicle theft using electronic devices such as signal jammers, but there are others also. The first offence criminalises possession of those devices, and the second criminalises importing, making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply those devices.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I might be showing my entire ignorance of signal jammers, but is there no other use for these bits of technology? I can see whether there is when it comes to stamping things on pills and plans to build a gun on a 3D printer, but my ignorance about signal jammers means that I do not know whether there is another use for them.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Lady for that very good question. These two offences require a reasonable suspicion that the device will be used in connection with vehicle theft. The judge or the jury, depending on whether we are talking about magistrates court or the Crown court, have to be satisfied there is a reasonable suspicion that that is what the device will be used for. It is important that the police have the powers to arrest and prosecute people involved in this kind of activity. The offences should help a great deal in stopping these electronic devices getting into criminal hands.
We have talked a little bit about the evidential burden of proof in clause 4, and I will not rehearse those points at great length, in the interests of Committee members’ patience and time. As many of the articles that we are talking about can be used only for criminal purposes, it is reasonable to construct the clause this way. Members of the Committee will recall that we took evidence on this issue from a number of people in law enforcement, including Graeme Biggar, the director general of the National Crime Agency. Law enforcement—both territorial policing and the NCA—strongly welcomes these measures as strengthening the police’s armoury in the fight against organised crime. Through this regulation-making power, Ministers and Parliament will be able to keep up with changes in technology, which is extremely important given how fast technology is moving these days.
Alex Norris
I will start with the Government’s amendments. It is good, in general, for Governments to amend their Bills; it shows that they are still looking at the legislation. We hope to see them show the same flexibility to our amendments in due course. I am grateful for the written explanation the Minister has furnished, although it is possible that my first emotion upon getting dozens of amendments in the week before Christmas may not have been gratitude; I think there might have been a bit of swearing when we got the other set earlier this week, too. Nevertheless, we appreciate the explainer.
As we have heard, Government amendments 14 to 17, 20 to 22 and 41 extend the provisions in clauses 1 to 4 to Scotland and Northern Ireland, which is welcome. A four-nations approach to tackling serious and organised crime is wise. We do not want such activity to be displaced to places that are not covered by legislation, or for areas or indeed countries to be seen as safe havens. That has to be the right thing to do. I hope that the Minister will say a little about the discussions he had with colleagues in Scotland and Northern Ireland to reach this conclusion, and what other work may be done to ensure that the legislation is used effectively.
Having listened to what the Minister said on Government amendments 40, 49 and 44 on proceeds of crime, we are similarly comfortable with the approach being taken with those. As the Minister said, we heard from Graeme Biggar and other witnesses about the importance of the proceeds of crime. These measures would tighten that regime, which is welcome.
I covered most of our views on clause 1 when speaking to my amendments, so I will not repeat them. I will just say that the clause is an important step forward, and something on which we are keen. Clause 2 defines what is meant by “relevant article”. The articles in scope today are 3D printer firearms templates, encapsulators, tablet presses and vehicle concealments. [Interruption.]
Chris Philp
I will briefly respond to one or two of the points the shadow Minister raised. We engaged with the devolved Administrations both at an official level and through correspondence. I am glad to say that they were pretty keen to ensure that the new offences applied in Scotland and Northern Ireland. As the shadow Minister said, it is very important to ensure that serious criminals have no part of the United Kingdom in which they can operate. I am glad to observe generally that despite political differences, particularly with the nationalists in Scotland, we have a relatively good relationship on law enforcement co-operation. Generally, we work quite constructively together in a non-confrontational, non-politicised way, as I guess our constituents, the public, and the whole House would expect.
On the affirmative regulation-making power, I am grateful to the shadow Minister for breaking his habit and supporting it. He is quite right to say that this is technically a Henry VIII power, in that it is a statutory instrument that can amend primary legislation—under clause 2(3), the statutory instrument can amend the clause—but it has very limited scope, because only this clause can be amended. The only purpose for which the power can be used is specifying additional types of technology, because that is all that the clause does. While this is a Henry VIII power, it has very limited and specific applicability.
As for adding future items, there is nothing immediately on the list. I expect us to stay very closely in touch with the law enforcement community, particularly the National Crime Agency, but also the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for serious and organised crime, and the regional organised crime units, who would rapidly identify new bits of technology used by criminals, so that we could very quickly add them. There is not a statutory duty to consult—other than, of course, with Scotland and Northern Ireland’s devolved Administrations—but we did consult on these provisions. It would be our intention, unless there was an emergency situation, to consult prior to adding any new items, lest there were unintended consequences. I hope that addresses the points raised, and I commend the four clauses to the Committee.
Amendment 14 agreed to.
Amendments made: 15, in clause 1, page 2, line 2, at end insert—
“(b) in Scotland, an offence specified or described in Part 1A of that Schedule;
(c) in Northern Ireland, an offence specified or described in Part 2 of that Schedule.”
See the statement for amendment 14.
Amendment 16, in clause 1, page 2, line 4, after “conviction” insert “in England and Wales”.
See the statement for amendment 14.
Amendment 17, in clause 1, page 2, line 5, at end insert—
“(aa) on summary conviction in Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);
(ab) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);”.—(Chris Philp.)
See the statement for amendment 14.
Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Section 1: meaning of “relevant article”
Amendments made: 18, in clause 2, page 2, line 17, after “1968” insert
“or, in Northern Ireland, Article 2(2) of the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 (S.I. 2004/702 (N.I. 3))”.
See the statement for amendment 14.
Amendment 19, in clause 2, page 2, line 30, leave out “subsection).” and insert
“subsection or subsection (4)).
(4) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Scottish Ministers, and
(b) the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland. —(Chris Philp.)
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult the Scottish Ministers and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland before making regulations under this clause.
Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Electronic devices for use in vehicle theft
Amendments made: 20, in clause 3, page 3, line 10, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert—
“(a) in England and Wales—
(i) an offence under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 of theft of a conveyance (as defined by section 12 of that Act) or anything in a conveyance, or
(ii) an offence under section 12 of that Act (taking vehicle or other conveyance without authority);
(b) in Scotland—
(i) theft of a vehicle, vessel or aircraft constructed or adapted for use for transporting one or more persons or of anything in such a vehicle, vessel or aircraft, or
(ii) an offence under section 178 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (taking motor vehicle without authority);
(c) in Northern Ireland—
(i) an offence under section 1 of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 of theft of a conveyance (as defined by section 12 of that Act) or anything in a conveyance, or
(ii) an offence under section 12 of that Act (taking vehicle or other conveyance without authority).”
This amendment and amendments 21 and 22 extend the offence under this clause to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Amendment 21, in clause 3, page 3, line 16, after “conviction” insert “in England and Wales”
See the statement for amendment 20.
Amendment 22, in clause 3, page 3, line 17, at end insert—
“(aa) on summary conviction in Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);
(ab) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);”—(Chris Philp.)
See the statement for amendment 20.
Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Possession of a SIM farm
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 6 and 7 stand part.
Government amendment 47.
Schedule 1.
Chris Philp
As Members will be aware, criminals often use telecommunications networks to target people to try and defraud them, for example with scam texts and scam calls. In fact, the secretary of my local residents association in Coulsdon, in my constituency of Croydon South, sent me a message just this morning with an example of a scam text that she had just received, purporting to come from the Royal Mail and inviting her to click on a link and fill in her details. This is clearly a problem.
I am sure that we have all heard such examples; indeed, we have probably received messages ourselves. Although most people can identify them as scams trying to elicit fraud, unfortunately some people who receive them are taken in, because the messages can often be quite realistic, and often they end up losing significant amounts of money.
Very often, these scam texts can be traced back to so-called “SIM farms”, which are electronic devices that sometimes hold hundreds of physical SIM cards that can be used to send out thousands and thousands of scam text messages in a matter of seconds. These devices are relatively easy to buy and—until this Bill passes into law—they are legal to buy online, enabling criminals to commit large-scale fraud by abusing our telecommunications network. In the fraud strategy, we committed to stopping that, which is why we are legislating.
We consulted on these proposals in May 2023 and received broad support for these measures. There were some concerns about the definitions being too broad, such that they would inadvertently criminalise some legitimate activity, but we have worked to develop the legislation in order to address those concerns.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
On that particular point about possession of a SIM farm, the Bill says that a person charged with an offence under the clause must provide “good reason”. It goes on to state what the good reasons are, for example providing broadcasting services. However, I would have assumed that a broadcasting service would be already licensed; similarly, if a body is operating a genuine public transport service, it is probably a local authority. Could the Minister explain that “good reason” a bit more? It seems a bit woolly or wide to me. Somebody who is clever enough to run a SIM farm would be clever enough to find a way around that somehow. I want to support the Government in advancing their proposal, but is it possible to tighten it up a bit more?
Chris Philp
The hon. Member raises a concern that inventive criminals might exploit the defences we set out in clause 5(3), on lines 37 to 40 at the bottom of page 3, which he was quoting from. He is concerned that criminals might find a way of pretending or purporting to offer, for example, legitimate broadcasting services when in fact they do not. I think that a court would take a view on legitimate broadcasting services. If there was a prosecution and a criminal advanced that defence, it would be up to the jury to decide whether the broadcasting services really were legitimate.
Since the hon. Member has raised the point, I will happily take it away and see whether there are any concerns that the clause might inadvertently provide a loophole for ingenious or inventive criminals. I will seek to satisfy myself that that is not the case, but if he has identified a problem or potential loophole, I will happily come back to the Committee. I will take that away as a point to double check. We can probably rely on juries, or magistrates in a magistrates court trial, to apply common sense to those defences, but it is good that he raised the question and I will certainly look into it.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
On that point, it is possible for scammers to intercept texts that come from a credible bank, so they can slot in a text in the line of communication between a person and their credible bank. Have the Government given any thought as to how we can stop that happening? I feel it makes us even more vulnerable.
Chris Philp
That sort of interception and insertion is not addressed by this clause, which is about SIM farms and the almost industrial-scale transmission of thousands of messages. What the hon. Lady is describing is a little different. It can happen to emails as well. For example, if someone is about to buy a house, they may be corresponding with their solicitor. When the solicitor tells them to transfer the funds to X bank account, a criminal can insert themselves into the email chain, pretending to be the solicitor, and put in a message telling the client to send the funds to their own bank instead of the solicitor’s client account. Inserting messages into an email chain happens quite a bit, but that is not what this clause is designed to address. The Security Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), is very aware of the issue because it falls into his portfolio rather than mine. Perhaps I could ask his officials to write to the hon. Lady to update her on the work he is doing with law enforcement on that point, because this clause just does not address it.
Turning back to the group of clauses, it is worth saying that these offences will make it difficult—I hope impossible—for criminals to access and use SIM farms for the purposes of fraud, and the police will be given the tools that they need to disrupt them. Clauses 5 and 6 ban the possession and supply of a SIM farm. However, as I have already said in response to the hon. Member for Bootle, if a person has good reason or lawful authority, obviously that is not criminalised. We have talked a bit about the legitimate use issue already, and there are some examples provided in clause 5, as we have discussed.
I will turn to amendment 47 to schedule 1. Schedule 1 confers powers of entry, search and seizure in relation to these offences. There is an offence of intentionally obstructing a constable when they are carrying out a search—the search is to be unimpeded, obviously . That offence also needs to apply in the case of people who are exercising the power of a constable, such as designated National Crime Agency officers, who are not necessarily constables. Amendment 47 to schedule 1 is a technical amendment that makes sure that all the relevant people can exercise this power of search: not just constables, but any person who is exercising the power of a constable. It is a technical amendment, making sure that it applies to everybody undertaking those searches to hopefully find and prosecute criminals who are using SIM farms. On that basis, I commend these provisions to the Committee.
Alex Norris
Fraud is an everyday, large-scale fact of life in this country. According to the crime survey, there were 3.7 million instances of fraud in England and Wales in 2022. Fraud now represents 40% of all crimes. It is an everyday peril that all of us face and from which vulnerable people are clearly at risk.
Furthermore, the National Crime Agency estimates that 86% of fraud goes unreported. That means that victims are unsupported and vital evidence that could break some of the fraud rings goes uncollected. We have to do better and build confidence among the public that fraud is not just a fact of life but that, if they report it, something will happen.
We have to push back on the idea—I hope that the Minister will be very clear about this in his response—that, to some degree, fraud is a lesser crime. When citing the statistics on crime reduction that the Minister cited in his opening speech, about which people say, “Yes, but you have not counted fraud in that”, we have heard other Ministers say—although I do not think we have heard this Minister say it—“Well, fraud is not quite the same as those crimes. It is a lesser crime. It doesn’t feel quite as bad”. That is wrong, and I hope that the Minister will say, on the record, that that is not the view of the Government.
Alex Norris
If I were to open my social media accounts now, I think that I would find myself called an awful lot worse than Alex Cunningham, so I have no problem with that at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North is absolutely right, though. That sort of action can ruin lives. And it can destroy a business. I probably should not be relying on “Coronation Street” for my arguments, but there is a good storyline about that at the moment. It can ruin a business. We know that there is vulnerability there. For an individual, losing that sort of sum of money—£6,000—could ruin their life. It could jeopardise their housing situation, and it can jeopardise relationships, too—we have seen that happen in the past—so it is very serious. It knocks people’s confidence as well; it makes people not want to engage with others. This is just as important as other crimes, and it is really important that we send out that message.
Part of the reason for the success that criminals have is that they can do mass-scale phishing. That means that, while there are things that we all receive and think, “Well, that’s a pretty crude scam. Who is going to fall for that?”, we know that trying crude and rudimentary things over and over again on a mass scale can, on a long enough timeline, succeed.
That is before we get to the incredibly sophisticated methods that my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle mentioned, and I welcome the response that the Minister gave on that. There is a difference. The Minister mentioned his constituent and Royal Mail. Most of the time, I would look at the link and say, “Well, that’s not Royal Mail.” I would ignore it and move on. But, if I was expecting something from Royal Mail, I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that I would do that. That is the case not least because we always want what is coming: “Where is it? Come on, I’m ready for it.” I can easily see how that mistake can be made, and that mistake could have a profound and long-term impact on someone’s life. It is only possible to do that because of technology that allows relentless and repeated communication attempts, and we know that so-called SIM farms are the way that that is done.
We support the aim behind clause 5 of making an offence of the possession of a SIM farm. I have reservations about the utility of subsection (2), but we have probably tested that debate to destruction. The point that was made about “good reason” was really good. I am slightly uncomfortable with the Minister’s response that the court will set that; I think we could do that. There are legitimate, although deeply irritating, marketing purposes for that degree of communication—it is for others to say how effective it is. Even political parties engage in it sometimes, so bulk text messages are not without precedent. It feels like we can tighten up the clause to specify who can use these things and to what purpose. Again, there will be edge cases that fall between the marketing of a bad product and the marketing of a fraudulent product. There is a difference between those things. People have a right to advertise a product that is not very good. We would not want to consumer it, use it or buy it, but they can do that. That would be at the edge of the cases we are talking about here, so we need greater clarity, and perhaps the Government can tighten that up before Report.
Clause 7 introduces schedule 1, which is amended by Government amendment 47. The schedule relates to the offence of obstructing a person in their endeavours to investigate possible offences under clauses 5 and 6. The effect of the amendment is that a person cannot obstruct someone other than a constable as that search warrant is being executed. Again, we do not have a problem with that—people need to comply with the provisions of the law—but we need a bit more clarity. I do not say this to be smart; I just want to understand it. The Minister characterises this as a technical amendment, which is a term of art in this place. Was there a drafting error or does it genuinely not change the substance of this provision? I do not think the intention is for lots and lots of people to have the ability to exercise these powers. It is tightly defined, and those who are not constables who can do this will be accompanied by a constable, but we could do with a bit more clarity.
Finally on this topic, part of the challenge we face is that although some of these enterprises will be set up in this country, they can also be set up and executed from other nations that have weaker arrangements than we will have, assuming this legislation passes. Will the Minister tell us about the conversations the Government are having with European and global partners about this, and give us some information about where the hotspots are so that there is greater public awareness?
Chris Philp
Let me respond to one or two of the issues that the shadow Minister quite reasonably raised.
Fraud makes up about 40% of all criminal offences—the figure I have in my mind is 41%. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is incredibly serious, and I have certainly never suggested anything to the contrary. It can devastate people’s lives. People who have worked hard over a lifetime building up their life savings to fund their retirement or their children’s education can suddenly have them taken from them in very distressing circumstances, so there is no question but that fraud is an extremely serious crime. The Government take it extremely seriously, which is why there is a fraud action plan, backed with investment—we recently provided over £100 million of extra money.
I was one of the Ministers through whose hands the Online Safety Act 2023 passed during its extremely lengthy gestation. It will have a significant effect by requiring the large social media platforms to proactively take steps to prevent fraud. Some of them have already done that voluntarily, and there have been big reductions in the amount of online-originated fraud, so this is a huge priority.
The simple reason we do not include fraud when comparing the overall crime figures to 2010 is that it got picked up by the crime survey for England and Wales, alongside computer misuse, only in about 2016. If the figures going back to 2010 existed, we would obviously include them. When we talk about a 56% reduction in crime since 2010 to on a like-for-like basis, which I am sure I will be referring to once or twice in the next year, it excludes fraud and computer misuse only because they were not in that series of figures.
Chris Philp
I will in a moment. When we compare the crime figures since 2016, we see that overall crime has fallen. For example, overall crime including fraud and computer misuse has fallen by 10% in the last year, which I am sure the shadow Minister is about to stand up and welcome.
Alex Norris
I gently say that, in their attempts to create a picture of community safety—which is not what people feel—there is a problem in Government Ministers relying on statistics that they know to be incomplete. There should be some reflection on the numbers cited. I understand the like-for-like point—that is true—but it is problematic to tell the public how much safer they are if that argument relies on excluding a significant and growing type of crime. That must be wrong.
Chris Philp
It is not reliant on that. It is simply that the data does not exist. The chief inspector of constabulary Andy Cooke said in his state of policing report last June that we are arguably safer than we have ever been before. If we look at the crime types for which we do have continuous data going back to 2010 and before—such as burglary, robbery, the vehicle theft figures that the shadow Minister himself quoted recently, violent and seriously violent crime—we see that all of those individual crime types have fallen dramatically.
Chris Philp
In a moment. Bicycle theft is down by 39%, vehicle crime by about 50%, and violent crime by around 50%. It is not the case that some sort of artifice going on and that if we added fraud, that would paint a different picture. Whichever crime type we look at, we see that it is going down according to the crime survey. We all know why police reported crime sometimes shows different trends. It is because the police are being driven by—we are getting a bit off topic here, so I am probably going to get told off in a minute.
Chris Philp
Yes. There is probably another time to debate this point, and perhaps now is a good moment to give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley.
Jess Phillips
I think I am at risk of offending you in the Chair, Dame Angela, but may I have the data for whether rape, child abuse or domestic violence have gone up or down?
Chris Philp
Thank you, Dame Angela; you were extremely tolerant, but I could sense the frostiness beginning to build without even looking at you.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, asked two more questions on this group, which I will answer very briefly. He asked for assurance that this technical amendment was not a smokescreen for some nefarious Government plot. The wording of Government amendment 47 is very clear, in that it just inserts the words,
“a person who has the powers of a constable”.
Therefore, it extends the powers of search only where that person has the powers of a constable, which of course is set out in legislation. I gave as an example certain employees of the National Crime Agency. This is not an open-ended provision—it is very specific and precisely defined in law as someone who already has the powers as a constable. We are not creating any new powers in the Bill, other than that those people who have the powers of a constable can conduct these searches.
The shadow Minister also asked about international co-operation, which is extremely important. My colleague the Security Minister works very closely with international partners—in fact, he is almost constantly travelling. There will be an international summit chaired by the Home Secretary later this year on the very topic of combating fraud, working closely with the Five Eyes and engaging bilaterally with the European Union and other key countries. There are various jurisdictions that tend to originate more of this fraud—Russia, for example—and the Security Minister in particular and the Home Secretary are working very closely on that. In order to avoid any further disapproval, Dame Angela, I think I have answered the questions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 6 and 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
Possession or supply of Sim farms: powers of entry etc
Amendment made: 47, in schedule 1, page 75, line 15, after “includes” insert “—
(a) a person who has the powers of a constable;
(b)”.—(Chris Philp.)
This amendment provides that the offence in this paragraph applies in respect of persons who have the powers of a constable.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8
Fraud facilitated by electronic communications: possession or supply of other
articles
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
We have already discussed that technological change can be very rapid, and that criminals, including fraudsters, are quite technologically literate and very often embrace emerging tech capabilities to attempt to defraud the public. Just as we previously discussed in relation to articles used for serious and organised crime, so here, in clause 8, we are proposing to create a power by regulations for the Secretary of State to make a list of new items that might be prohibited where they can be used for the purposes of committing crime by way of electronic communications.
As the shadow Minister has said, one has to be a little cautious about conferring regulation-making powers too freely, so there are constraints on this. For example, the offences created using these regulation-making powers can only create summary offences of possessing or supplying technology to be used in connection with fraud facilitated by electronic communication. It is very specific and very narrow.
The shadow Minister previously asked about consultation. I said that there was no statutory requirement to consult on those extensions—outside of the devolved Administrations, of course—but that the broad intention was to do so, unless there was a very good reason otherwise, such as an emergency. Here, however, we do have a statutory duty to consult. Members will find it in clause 8(5), which states that
“the Secretary of State must consult such persons appearing…to be likely to be affected by the regulations”.
There is therefore a statutory obligation to consult here, which I hope provides the shadow Minister with the assurance that he is probably about to ask for.
Alex Norris
I am afraid that clause 8 deeply frustrates me. I do not think it is in any way the same as clause 2(3). That provision allows the Secretary of State to add items to and remove them from an established list concerning an offence that is established in law on the face of the Bill. This is slightly different. Clause 8(1) states:
“The Secretary of State may by regulations create a summary offence of possessing or supplying an article specified in the regulations.”
That is making a law, not monitoring a list. This is an example of a Henry VIII power used badly. The provision should be in the Bill, and if the nature of the networks is likely to change over time, there should be a mirroring power, similar to that in clause 2(3), that enables us to change the list. We would have supported that. This puts us in an invidious position. Of course, we want this to be in legislation and we want there to be regulation and control over electronic communications networks or services being used in a dangerous way. However, we are being asked to jump into the abyss and to choose between either voting against including in the Bill something that we think is broadly a good idea, or allowing the Government to do an incomplete job and leave a placeholder. Even as I stand here, I am not sure which is the right answer.
I welcome the fact that consultation is on the face of the Bill. That gives us some degree of safeguard. However, accepting the clause would mean accepting that a significant offence would be created and decided upstairs, rather than in the white heat of the legislative process. I do not think that is right. I am not sure if the Minister is able to say anything that will give me slightly greater comfort. If we were able to see what the offence looked like between different stages of a Committee, that would probably be enough to salve my pain. I do not think that will happen, but I will listen to what the Minister says.
Chris Philp
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his question. I point to the way the clause is constructed. Clause 8(2) is narrowly defined, in that is says:
“An article may be specified only if the Secretary of State considers that there is a significant risk of the article being used for a purpose connected with fraud that is perpetrated by means of—
(a) an electronic communication network, or
(b) an electronic communication service.”
Clearly the Secretary of State’s decision would be amenable to judicial review if it were unreasonably exercised. The scope of the ability to create a new criminal offence is highly circumscribed and it has to fit within that narrow box in the Bill.
Alex Norris
I accept that that is circumscribed; it is not narrow. However, electronic communication networks constitute an exceptionally broad area of British life, touching us every minute of every day, and that does not feel very narrow at all.
Chris Philp
That is only part of the circumscription, because prior to that the clause says,
“being used for a purpose connected with fraud”.
If we think about that as a Venn diagram, the shadow Minister is right to say that electronic communication networks and services represent an enormous field. However, that is not where the power is created. It is created in the intersection between that bit of the Venn diagram and the bit where the article or technology is being used for a purpose connected with fraud, and that intersection is a lot smaller.
I do not think that any member of this Committee or any Member of Parliament, of either party, would object to criminalising technology being used for a particular fraudulent purpose. In addition to the protection afforded by the statutory obligation to consult, there is also the fact that this can only be a summary offence, which severely limits the maximum penalty that may be applied.
Alex Norris
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is being very generous. I completely agree that there is not a person in this building—including, I suspect, the mice on the Terrace—who think that it is a bad idea to have powers that restrict fraudulent use of electronic communications. The problem is that in the previous debate the test for that was good reason and then we would rely on the court. In the eyes of Government, therefore, it is clearly not black and white whether it is fraud and they may well rely on others to define that. In order to get through the blockage, perhaps the Minister could think about that in the context of the assurances he gave on good reason to my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle. That would probably be enough for me at this point.
Chris Philp
I can certainly confirm that where someone possesses technology for a good and legitimate reason, by definition it would not be getting used for a purpose connected with fraud. I can also confirm that where someone possesses communications technology for a legitimate purpose and not for use in connection with fraud, we would not expect that to ever be criminalised, either through offences created via this clause or in any other way. I hope that assures the shadow Minister.
Subsection 4 says:
“The regulations may—
(a) contain exceptions or defences”
of exactly the kind that we have created in clauses 1 to 4 already.
I hope that the assurance I have given, which will be in Hansard, combined with the narrow nature of this, the narrow scope of the ability to create offences, the statutory duty to consult, and the fact that it is a summary offence, meaning that the maximum term is six months at the moment—all those things taken together—will give the shadow Minister assurance on the questions that he is raising.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Possession of weapon with intent to use unlawful violence etc
Alex Norris
I beg to move amendment 53 in clause 9, page 6, line 24, at end insert—“(c) a sword.”
This amendment would make clear that the bladed articles in scope include swords.
Alex Norris
Clause 9 introduces a new offence of possessing an article with a blade or point or an offensive weapon with the intent to use unlawful violence. Knife crime is a scourge in this country. It devastates communities and families. It feels that we have a steady drumbeat of tragic cases, which, as I say, have a devastating effect, and it is right that we are taking action to do something about it. We should want to take action. This is not new; it feels to some degree that we have been spinning our wheels on action, but we are here now, so let us take that on its face.
The Government consulted in April last year on restricting the possession of so-called zombie knives and have announced on multiple occasions that they plan to enact such restrictions. I hope the Minister will give some clarity but, from the explanatory notes, I think that this is an attempt to make good on that. Paragraph 45 of the explanatory notes says:
“Following the closure of the consultation in June 2023, the Government published its response in August 2023. In that response, the Government committed to implementing all the proposals.”
Those are the proposals relating to restrictions on so-called zombie knives.
“Clauses 18, 10 and 9 give effect to those requiring primary legislation”.
I hope the Minister will be able to say whether this is the final stage of the ban’s implementation. Previously, we have been expecting secondary legislation in this regard.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Minister for that commitment. Currently, it is an offence to carry an article with a blade or point of over three inches, with the exception of a pocket-knife, in a public place. It is also an offence to threaten somebody with an offensive weapon and to carry in public any article intended to be used as an offensive weapon. As we understand it, the introduction of this new offence bridges the gap between threatening someone with a bladed article and being in possession of such an article.
Again, we support the intention to close the gap and ensure that we crack down on this scourge. Sharp instruments or knives are currently responsible for 41% of homicides, so clearly the police need stronger powers to deal with that. However, we think that the Government could go further and be clearer about what blades or weapons should be covered by the new offence. That is the effect of my amendment 53. Secondary legislation may be the place for that, rather than the Bill, but I do not want to miss the substance of amendment 53.
In recent years, there has been progress on banning certain weapons used in violent attacks. We have debated measures, for example, on adding knuckledusters, sword-sticks and now zombie knives to the list of offensive weapons. That progress is welcome, but again it does not go far enough because with increasing frequency supposedly decorative blades, such as ninja swords, are being used in violent knife attacks. It is vital that we update legislation again to include blades such as those.
The impact of my amendment would be to add swords to the list. I am perfectly aware that the Bill may not be the most elegant place for it, but what I am trying to get from the Minister is a commitment to extend the ban to swords. Recently, I met the family of Ronan Kanda and their Member of Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). They told me their story and about their campaign for justice. Ronan, a beloved son and brother, was just 16 years old when he was walking back to his home in Wolverhampton after picking up a PlayStation controller from a friend’s house. Just a few yards from his front door, Ronan was attacked from behind by two 16-year-olds carrying a machete and a ninja sword. Ronan was stabbed twice, suffering wounds to his back and chest. Tragically, he died at the scene.
It was later revealed that the perpetrators of this heinous act had mistaken Ronan for someone else and that he was not the intended target. The weapons used in the attack had been bought online by the perpetrators—just 16 years old themselves at the time—using another person’s ID, and had been collected from a local post office by them on the day of the attack. In July this year, they were sentenced to 18 and 16 years in prison for their crime.
When I met Ronan’s family recently, it was clear that what happened had shaken them to their core. It has had a devastating impact on their lives. I commend their unspeakable bravery in campaigning to try to create change as a result. I felt very guilty—this will happen with many others, too—that they had to tell their story yet again when I met them; there is that process of telling the story all over again in the pursuit of change. The family campaign now for ninja swords, the type used in Ronan’s murder, to be taken off the streets so that other families do not suffer such a loss. I again commend their extraordinary bravery.
The test that I will apply to the Government’s changes on zombie knives, and on broader knife crime, is whether they would take off the streets a weapon like the one that killed Ronan; if not, the changes will fall short. Existing legislation does not cover ninja swords, and nor does the Bill. From the Government’s response to the consultation on knife crime, I understand that they intend to stop short of ninja swords. I believe that to be a mistake, which will be compounded by other restrictions.
Leaving the ninja swords loophole in place will push sales and marketing towards ninja swords—if people cannot buy a zombie knife but can buy a ninja sword, that will displace activity and make the swords more likely to be carried. That risks more lives being lost, due to the lesser consequences for carrying.
Amendment 53 would add ninja swords explicitly to the Bill. We think the clause is good and important, but the amendment would enhance it. I know that an issue has been raised about ninja swords for decorative purposes, but I do not think that it is beyond us to have arrangements for when that can be managed. Again, the clause is not about possession—it is narrower: about the intent to cause unlawful violence—so I do not think that issue should be a concern, although there could be some sort of licensing scheme to address it.
I am very much looking forward to what the Minister says. This is not a criticism, but I just do not understand why in his plan he stopped short of ninja swords. I hope to get that clarity. Even if not today, the Government need to move on this. I hope to hear that that process is starting.
Chris Philp
It may be helpful to clarify the two different kinds of provisions that apply; the shadow Minister was conflating the two slightly. The first area, the one that we are debating, is to do with the existing offence of possessing any bladed article in a public place without good reason. That can include a legal kitchen knife. That carrying is a criminal offence under section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1998. That applies to every bladed article, even ones that are legal, such as a kitchen knife or anything else. It also applies to swords, including ninja swords, because they are bladed articles with a sharp point.
At the moment, the possession of any such knives, including so-called legal knives, carries a maximum sentence of up to two years if someone is caught in possession. For a second possession offence, the mandatory minimum is six months in prison, absent exceptional circumstances—we tightened that up in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. That is the law for possessing blades in public.
The clause states that when someone possesses any bladed article—including a legal kitchen knife—with intent to cause damage, the maximum sentence will not be two years, as currently, but four years, if that person intends to cause harm. For example, they might put a video on TikTok saying, “I’m going to stab X”. If there is intention to cause harm, that doubles the maximum sentence. That is what the clause does. The amendment to include swords is not necessary, because every bladed article, including swords, is already included.
The hon. Member for Nottingham North was actually talking about a different set of provisions, which were included in our consultation and our response: banning certain kinds of knives. When a knife is banned, it cannot be sold, imported or possessed even in private. Something such as a zombie knife was covered in the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, where it has threatening writing on the blade. Such knives cannot even be held in someone’s home. Having banned knives at home or selling them to anyone is an offence; a kitchen knife can of course be sold and had at home, but even a kitchen knife cannot be carried down the street without a good reason.
In our consultation, we were talking about the knives that people cannot even possess privately at home; they cannot be sold or imported, and they are completely prohibited. The measures we announced in the Bill will simply increase the list of things on the completely prohibited list. For example, a loophole in the 2019 Act meant that threatening words on the blade were required for the zombie knife to be illegal. We are removing that provision, so that any zombie knife, even with nothing on the blade, will still be illegal—common sense, really.
Those changes—widening the range of knives that will be completely illegal—will be made not through the Bill, but through secondary legislation that will be laid before the House in the near future, by which I mean a small number of weeks. I do not wish to provoke the ire of the Chair, so I should say that the place to debate what should be in and out of that list is probably in the Delegated Legislation Committee that will come soon, in a small number of weeks.
I thank the shadow Minister for mentioning the case raised by his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). I have also met Ronan’s family, who were brought into Parliament by the right hon. Member. We obviously both heard the same account of their story. It was extremely moving and tragic that such a young life was lost. I think it was a case of mistaken identity—as the shadow Minister said, Ronan was attacked from behind. I add my tribute to the family, and to Ronan’s mum and sister in particular, who have recounted the terrible, traumatic event to try to improve law enforcement in this area. We are mindful of that case, and I look forward to debating what is on and off the list when we come to it.
For complete clarity, I repeat the point that the possession of any bladed article, including swords and even kitchen knives, in a public place without good reason is already a criminal offence with a maximum sentence of two years. When a knife is possessed with intent, as in the attack on Ronan—the two youths obviously intended to go and kill someone, although it was someone else—the clause increases the maximum sentence from two years to four years. In that case the youths clearly committed homicide, which obviously has life as a maximum sentence.
I hope that I have provided clarity about the purpose of the clause and explained why the change is necessary, because it is included already, and that in secondary legislation we are altering the law on completely prohibited weapons. That will happen in a small number of weeks. I hope that addresses both the hon. Gentleman’s amendment and the substantive provisions in clause 9.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the clarity on what will be covered under the provision. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment. I must say that I am a bit frustrated: it was not clear from the explanatory notes whether this was the full ban. Clearly, from the answer that I have been given, it is not. However, it is a shame that the change will come in secondary legislation, because we are here now—we have legislation in front of us—and we cannot amend secondary legislation.
There will be a big debate in the Delegated Legislation Committee on the point about swords. We will be put in an invidious position, because of course we will not vote against the secondary legislation, but we will not be able to get the change that we really want and we will continue to miss out. The Government’s approach is slightly frustrating. The commitment that the secondary legislation is coming shortly is good, but I hope that the Minister will use the time to reflect on my point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question accordingly agreed to.
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Scott Mann.)
Criminal Justice Bill (Fourth sitting)
Chris Philp ExcerptsThursday 14th December 2023
(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Alex Norris
Q
Paul Gerrard: I gave evidence to the Scottish equivalent of this, when Daniel Johnson MSP’s Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Good and Services) (Scotland) Bill was passed. Our sense is that it resulted in the police in Scotland taking incidents far more seriously. It is quite hard to come by data, but the data that I see tells me that for attendance at the scene when we report incidents, Police Scotland is one of the five best forces in the country.
Paddy referenced this: when a report is made of violence in stores in Scotland, the individual is arrested 60% of the time. England and Wales are nowhere close to that; here, it is penny numbers. I do not pretend that this is empirical, but our sense as a business is that the protection of workers Act in Scotland increased the importance of this for the police, and the police have responded. If we could get to the position of 60% of reported violent offences resulting in an arrest, my colleagues would be very grateful, as would Paddy’s members, and all the members of the British Retail Consortium.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
Q
Helen Dickinson: It was like a practice for today.
Chris Philp
Q
You referenced the retail crime action plan. Paul, you just said that you thought that the stand-alone offence in Scotland got increased attention from the police. In law, assaulting a retail worker is illegal, and since the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, if the victim is a public-facing worker, that is statutorily an aggravating factor. You pointed to police attention as a benefit of introducing a separate offence. Just a couple of months ago, we all, except maybe Paddy, sat together at No. 10 Downing Street to launch the retail crime action plan. Do you agree that the commitments made in that plan, if operationalised—my expectation is that it will be, but we have to ensure that police do operationalise it—will deliver what you need, which is the police dealing with this comprehensively?
Paul Gerrard: We very much welcome that action plan. For a number of months, we have been calling for attendance at incidents involving violent repeat offenders. That is what the police have committed to. As you know, Minister, they are a long way from that; they are not attending 70% of serious incidents at present. I very much welcome the plan, and it is great that the police will turn up. I say that as a former law enforcement officer and Customs and Excise officer. When they do, they need the full tools available.
My strong view is that having a stand-alone offence will give the police, when they do turn up—I am with you; I really hope that they do—all the options they need. It will make it easier and quicker to investigate and prosecute the crime as a summary offence. I would also not underestimate, Minister, the power of Parliament saying that it is a specific offence to attack a shop worker. That will have an impact on three million shop workers, who frankly are not sure at present if Parliament cares what happens to them.
Chris Philp
Q
Paul Gerrard: When your predecessor introduced that, we welcomed it, though we said at the time that we would prefer a stand-alone offence. I remember being in a meeting —Paddy was there, as was Helen—with the then Home Secretary, the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor, and we all welcomed it. The Home Secretary said that if the measure did not work, they would revisit the idea of a stand-alone offence.
Since that aggravated offence has come in, we have seen no discernible difference. I know that the Home Office cannot tell us how often the measure has been used—I am not sure whether it actually has been used—but I do not think that it has made a difference. It cannot be used when the police do not attend in the first place.
Chris Philp
Q
Paul Gerrard: They are hugely important commitments, and we said at the time—I said clearly on behalf of the Co-op—that we very much welcome the retail crime action plan. My point is that there is still a long way to go before that happens, and I know that you are aware of that. However, when police attend, they need the full toolkit, and one of those tools should be a stand-alone offence, because that makes it quicker and easier to prosecute the individual. It also sends a powerful message to 3 million shop workers in this country.
Chris Philp
Q
Paddy, perhaps I could turn to you to follow up on that point about tools. We discussed that a little yesterday, in our retail crime steering group meeting. One of the tools that both retailers and the police have at their disposal for identifying, arresting, and prosecuting offenders, and ultimately sending them to prison, is facial recognition. They can use it retrospectively, to catch offenders, and live, to identify prolific offenders who wander into a store. Do you want to share your views on the potential that that technology has to protect retail workers, and retail stores?
Paddy Lillis: Anything that protects retail workers and the product, and makes society better, I am in favour of. I am in favour of facial recognition, but it needs to be robust, because we already know that in some areas, it is seen as something that could bring racial bias, so we have to ensure that it is tight and robust to deal with that. As for anyone going into a store who is worried about facial recognition, if you go in to shoplift, or to assault a retail worker, then you should be worried about it, but if you are going in to carry out your day-to-day shopping, you should not have a problem with it. I welcome anything that helps the retail workers.
Coming back to what was said about a stand-alone offence, there is no real data tracking. Assaulting a public-facing worker was made an aggravated element that has to be considered by the courts, but it only has to be considered. Having assault of a retail worker as a stand-alone offence means that we can track the data, and track offences going through the court system. That is the benefit of the system in Scotland; more than 6,000 incidents have been investigated by the police, and we can track them through the courts.
This whole thing is about sending out the message to the criminal fraternity that we are all on the side of workers. They should be able to go to work free from fear of being abused, threatened or assaulted at work. This has been going on for too long, and this upsurge in violence and abuse is getting worse. I really urge you to look at this again. This is a win-win for every constituency in the country. You have an opportunity in this Bill to do this.
Chris Philp
Q
Helen, we talked about the new commitment in the retail crime action plan on the police to always attend in the circumstances that I mentioned, in order to address the issues that Paul quite rightly pointed to. For the Committee’s benefit, can you talk a bit about the way that we—the Government, policing and the retail community, particularly the British Retail Consortium—can work together to make sure that the commitments in the action plan are delivered in practice?
Helen Dickinson: There are a couple of things that I would highlight. When we are in conversation with the police, they often talk about whether enough of the right information is being reported to them to enable them to act. One of the workstreams associated with the action plan is about ensuring that people right across retail are aware of what data needs to go into various police systems to enable them to respond as appropriate. There is activity on the retail side, with the support of the police, on that interaction.
The second point you are perhaps alluding to is this data question. Certainly, we have agreed to provide support in the interim period, so that data is collected on response rates. Paul is doing that from a Co-op point of view. The question is whether we can get a wider read. That impacts on this issue. We think a stand-alone offence is required because it really builds on the accountability and visibility that is required from a police resourcing point of view. I think you had various policing people here, talking to the Committee, in previous sittings. If police do not have visibility across forces on what is happening in local communities, they are not allocating resource to the right place and are not necessarily able to respond.
We can certainly help by building the data that will give us a snapshot of whether the commitments made by the police in the action plan are being fulfilled, but that is not a long-term solution that will give us the response rates required from the police to address what is becoming an epidemic across the country, and what we see on the frontline in our communities. When we spoke yesterday, you said you were worried. I think everybody here should be worried. What is happening in certain parts of the US is much worse than the UK, but we are at a real turning point. Will the trajectory be halted? Without police visibility, as well as industry visibility, of the scale of the problem, so that they can put the resource in the right place, we will not make progress on the problem.
You are looking at me, Minister; I have not answered your question. We are really keen to continue the very strong engagement that we have had with you over the past few months. I know that this is a cross-party point, and that everybody takes what is happening very seriously. We are very happy to continue to do that.
Chris Philp
Q
I have just one more question. On the issue of the stand-alone offence, which has come up again and again, we have talked about the data point, and there may be other ways of addressing it. One question that will come up as we debate this issue is that if we create a separate offence for retail workers—we already have a separate offence for assaulting emergency workers, of course—what do we say when the teaching unions say, “Can we have a separate offence of assaulting a teacher?”, the transport unions say, “Can we please have a separate offence of assaulting a bus or tube driver?”, or someone says, “Can we have a separate offence of assaulting someone under the age of 18?” A lot of groups have claims that are just as valid and strong as yours. Will we end up with 50 stand-alone offences—for teachers, bus drivers, train drivers and so on?
Helen Dickinson: That is a very valid question, but I would turn it around: if any of those other industries was saying, as we are today, “This is an epidemic on a very scary scale, and it is having a huge impact not just on the 3 million people who work in retail, but right across every single community that we live and work in,” and that epidemic was everywhere, that would be valid. However, we are saying that this is a unique situation. It is very specific to what is happening in the retail industry today, and that is why we think that you should focus on retail.
Paddy Lillis: There are about 1,000 incidents a day, and we think that that is just the tip of the iceberg, because most retail workers are not reporting them. They see them as part of their job. We are trying to get over that. If you are abused in any form at all, it should be reported, so that we get proper data. On a daily basis, there is the cost to industry of sick pay, mental health issues, injury—
Helen Dickinson: The cost of inflation.
Paddy Lillis: Absolutely. It really needs to be focused on. These are people performing a duty and serving the public, and if they are abused or assaulted in execution of their duty, they should have the protection of Parliament.
Paul Gerrard: I have two observations. I said before that I was a customs officer; I have done plenty of night shifts at Dover, and I have done shifts seizing cigarettes. I have never seen, even doing that job, the kind of abuse and violence that shop workers face. It is worth reflecting on just how unpleasant and lawless it is at times. I am not sure that other sectors can say quite the same, but it is for them to make the case.
My second point—I mentioned it before, but I will say it again—is that as legislators, you have asked these people to enforce the law, be it on age-related sales or social guidance during the pandemic. You ask them to enforce the law and put themselves at risk. The work that USDAW does demonstrates that very often violence follows enforcing the law. If you are to ask them to enforce the law, you must give them proper protection. That is the deal that I had always assumed was being made. I will not make a special case for retail workers, but if you are going to make them enforce the law, you should give them proper and special protection in the law for doing so.
Chris Philp
Q
Paul Gerrard: There are a couple of things there, Minister. First, I would say yes, although that provision is for all people in public-facing service. The difference here is that if my colleague decides to sell alcohol to someone they should not sell alcohol to, they will face a criminal sanction. This weekend, I was in Manchester, and one of my colleagues refused to sell cigarettes to a minor, who jumped behind the kiosk counter, attacked every single kiosk, and pushed, shoved and threatened staff. If they decided, “Actually, I do not want that to happen; I will just sell them the cigarettes,” they would be breaking the law. That is the difference.
I get the point about public service—as a former public servant, I think that is right—but if you are asking people to enforce the law, you should give them special protection in the law through a stand-alone offence, of the kind that I had when I was a customs officer. It is a stand-alone offence to attack a customs officer, because they are enforcing the law.
Chris Philp
I will certainly continue to work with you all, regardless of the details in the Bill, to get the retail crime action plan fully implemented and bring into force a zero-tolerance approach. I think we all agree that that is necessary, and I will do everything possible to ensure that the police deliver that operationally. Thank you for your work in this area, and I look forward to keeping on working with you.
Alex Norris
Q
Helen Dickinson: I agree completely with that comment. The reason why over 90 chief executives signed the letter to the Home Secretary from right across different parts of retail was that they are concerned about the fact that they are doing all they can, but feel that there is nothing more they can do. Paddy mentioned some statistics.
How do I describe it? It has two big impacts: one is financial, on the bottom line, how the profit of companies will be impacted unless they do everything that they can to address what could impact their business; and the second impact is on their biggest asset, which is their people, whether that is in absenteeism, morale or motivation to do their job well. Those two motivating factors, from a business leader point of view, mean something to every single business leader that I talk to. Literally, that is probably the thing that comes up most in the chief executive conversations that I have, because they feel that they have done everything that they can and that they are running out of road in terms of things that they could do.
The Minister asked about facial recognition, and I know that that is being explored by a lot of people. There have been various announcements about body cameras. People pay money into business improvement districts and regional partnerships. We have the Pegasus Project, which is trying to get better co-ordination across different parts of the police, specifically focused on organised gangs. That is being funded by retail businesses. They are not handing it all back and going, “It’s someone else’s problem.”
That is my answer to whoever it was. I am very happy to put them in front of any retail business, and I am sure they will be given lot of reasons. Paul, I do not know if there is anything you want to add.
Paul Gerrard: The Co-op is one of the businesses that is funding Operation Pegasus. Over the past four or five years, we have spent £200 million on security measures in our stores. That is four times the sector average. If you go into some of our stores, you will see state-of-the-art CCTV, body-worn cameras and headsets. We have increased our guarding budget by almost 60% from pre-covid days. We are constantly investing. We have had a problem with kiosks, where people jump behind the kiosk counter, often armed, terrifying colleagues who are still in the kiosk. We have just invested heavily in new kiosks to stop people from doing that.
Helen is absolutely right: the retail sector takes this really seriously. We consider the first responsibility to be ours, which is why we invest as much as we do to keep colleagues and shops safe, but we are getting to the point with some stores in the Co-op estate and across retail where it is increasingly hard to work out how to run a store that keeps colleagues safe and can make a commercial return. That will mean that shops will close, and we all see what happens when shops close: communities face tough times.
I have heard the police express that idea that we are not doing anything. They have had a similar, less-than-polite response from me when they have said it, because it is patently untrue.
Paddy Lillis: It is 21st-century Britain, and we have retail workers with body cams on—it sounds like a war zone. At the time, we are trying to get things right and get people back into the towns and city centres, but we are helpless. It is a societal problem, something we all need to work towards addressing. We must put the support we need behind retail staff and businesses. I have worked with them. Security measures just last year cost £1 billion, with more and more going in, but somewhere along the line we all pay for that. It is a massive problem that has to be addressed.
Chris Philp
Only to put on record that we actually have record police numbers now. It is not getting back towards the peak; the peak has been exceeded by about 3,500—
Provisional Police Grant 2024-25: England and Wales
Chris Philp Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has today published the provisional police grant report (England and Wales) 2024-25. The report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2024-25 of the aggregate amounts of grants that he proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. A copy of the report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Today, the Government have set out the provisional police funding settlement in Parliament for the forthcoming financial year. For 2024-25, overall funding for the policing system will rise by up to £842.9 million when compared to the restated 2023-24 police funding settlement, bringing the total settlement for 2024-25 up to £18.4 billion. Compared with 2019-20, this represents a total settlement increase of up to 30.7% in cash terms. For police and crime commissioners (PCCs), this means an increase of up to £922.2 million when compared to 2023-24 (if PCCs were to choose to take up the precept flexibility), taking total funding for PCCs to £16.4 billion. This funding settlement demonstrates that the Government remain committed to giving policing the resources it needs to keep the public safe.
For 2024-25, this Government are providing forces with an increase in Government grants of £624 million compared to the 2023-24 police funding settlement. This includes an additional £185 million, totalling £515 million when including funding provided in-year this financial year, to meet the costs of the pay award. The Home Office was only able to deliver this substantial funding increase by reprioritising funding from other programmes. We recognise the critical work carried out by our police officers on a daily basis, and the recent pay award rightly reflects the vital work they do to keep us all safe.
This settlement also confirms the additional grant funding as agreed at SR21 of £150 million and provides an additional £259 million to mitigate the impact of increased pension contributions. Furthermore, a one-off top-up payment of £26.8 million will be provided to forces for implementation costs, reducing the financial pressures forces are facing to deliver these changes. This boost in funding reflects the continued, unwavering commitment from this Government to maintain the 20,000 additional officers recruited nationally, and ensure policing has the resources and capabilities to reduce crime and keep the public safe from harm.
For 2024-25, the council tax referendum threshold for PCCs in England will be £13 for a band D property. This Government remain committed to ensuring the police are properly funded without placing an excessive burden on local taxpayers. When setting their budgets, PCCs should be mindful of the cost of living pressures that householders are facing.
In return for this significant investment, it is imperative that policing continues to deliver on driving forward improvements to productivity and identifying efficiencies where possible. The Government will continue to work with the sector to unlock the full range of opportunities and benefits of productivity and innovation to enable officers to have the tools to deliver on their core mission of keeping the public safe.
We therefore expect policing to approach the 2024-25 financial year with a focus on this Government’s key priorities:
Maintaining 20,000 additional officers (148,433 officers in total nationally) through to March 2025.
Continuing to deliver on the opportunities presented by new technology and innovation to deliver improvements in productivity and drive forward efficiencies, therefore maximising officer time and service to the public.
Improving the visibility of police officers and focusing on providing a targeted approach to tackling crime and antisocial behaviour to make neighbourhoods safer, which should be a priority for all forces.
Police uplift programme
Since 2019, this Government have invested over £2.7 billion additional funding into Government grants, to enable the recruitment of 20,000 additional officers. In March 2023, the Government, in partnership with policing, successfully delivered on their commitment, which is an extraordinary achievement. As a result, we now have more officers in England and Wales than the previous peak in 2010—and the most officers on record. It is vital that this continues throughout 2024-25 so that communities can receive the benefits of this investment. We are therefore allocating £425 million to the maintenance of additional officers for 2024-25, to be distributed as follows:
£67.2 million of the £425 million will be paid to the forces who volunteered to recruit additional officers agreed on 31 March 2023 as an “additional recruitment top-up grant”—providing financial certainty to those who chose to bolster officer numbers above targets.
£357.8 million will be ringfenced funding, which will be allocated via funding formula shares. PCCs will be able to access this funding, as in previous years, by demonstrating that they have maintained their officer numbers.
Efficiency and productivity
As the Home Office has reprioritised budgets to make significant investments in policing, it is the responsibility of police forces, like all public services, to ensure that they make best use of that investment. This includes reducing inefficiencies and maximising productivity, and in doing so ensuring that the money provided to policing represents value for money. Police forces have exceeded the efficiency target that was set out at the start of this spending review period and this work should continue, for example through ongoing collaboration with BlueLight Commercial, who estimate their work has supported the delivery of over £170 million-worth of cashable and efficiency savings.
The recently published policing productivity review has examined productivity in policing and developed a range of recommendations which, if fully implemented, could free up the equivalent of an estimated around 20,000 full-time police officers over the next five years. The Government are keen to work with the sector to unlock the full range of opportunities and benefits outlined in the review. We will publish a formal response in 2024 once we have fully considered the recommendations and engaged across Government and with key stakeholders in policing.
Investment in new technologies and innovation has the scope to unlock productivity at force level, support the policing of serious offenders and allow forces to provide increased support to the communities they serve. In 2023-24, the Home Office accelerated delivery in areas including automated redaction for text and multimedia files, and we began to explore the scope of robotic process automation to reduce the amount of time the police spend on tasks such as data cleansing, data entry and vetting checks. We have continued to invest in giving the public a choice in how they contact the police with increased digital contact, including the development of a public facing app. In 2024-25 we will maintain our investment via the National Police Chiefs’ Council chief scientific adviser for a biddable funding pot, to identify and support local innovation within forces with productivity benefits. We will also provide £11 million to support productivity with increased investment in innovative technology. The funding arrangements for specific programmes will be confirmed in due course.
National policing priorities
This settlement provides £1 billion for national policing priorities (as set out at tables 1 and 4) to ensure local policing bodies and forces have the resources and tools they need to address the evolving challenges of policing in the 21st century.
The Home Office is delivering a range of major law enforcement programmes, which will replace and improve essential national technology systems. This investment supports the modernisation of core national systems, enhancing the way forces communicate with each other and law enforcement partners to share data, intelligence, information and evidence. We are also improving the quality and the use of police data, providing national search capabilities and advanced analytics, and putting cutting-edge technology in the hands of specialist officers to tackle high-harm crime such as child sexual abuse.
Digital capabilities can transform the way forces prevent and detect crime, safeguard the public and operate more efficiently. The Home Office remains focused on driving innovation and accelerating the delivery of priority capabilities into policing. This includes the development of a “digital front counter” that uses technology and data to improve service to the public, reduce demand on policing and improve efficiencies.
In total in this settlement and across wider budgets, the Home Office will directly invest in excess of £200 million in flagship crime programmes that are helping to keep our streets safe. This will support violence reduction units to tackle violence in the worst-affected areas of the country, it will enable the police to continue to stamp out the scourge of county lines and it will help local areas to keep their neighbourhoods safe, including through the continuation of Project ADDER. But this is also about maximising the impact of our funding. By targeting investment in hotspot policing in those areas that are disproportionately impacted by both serious violence and antisocial behaviour, we can drive down crime and deliver increased value for money. We are also continuing to invest in a number of other priority areas for crime reduction, including but not limited to economic crime, modern slavery and violence against women and girls. Funding details for specific programmes will be confirmed to the usual timescales.
Counter-terrorism
The Government will continue to provide essential support for counter-terrorism (CT) policing, ensuring it has the resources it needs to meet and deal with the threat of terrorism. CT police funding will continue to total at least £1 billion in 2024-25. This investment will support ongoing CT policing investigations to ensure the safety of our communities and includes funding for the CT operations centre. PCCs will be notified separately of force-level funding allocations for CT policing, which will not be made public for security reasons.
This settlement will support the police to fulfil their essential role in cutting crime and keeping people safe. I would like to express my continued gratitude and pay tribute to our dedicated police officers and staff for their exceptional dedication and unwavering bravery. I have set out in a separate document, available as an online attachment, the tables illustrating how we propose to allocate the police funding settlement between the different funding streams and between local policing bodies for 2024-25. These documents are intended to be read together.
Attachments can be viewed online at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2023-12-14/HCWS132/
[HCWS132]
Fire Reform White Paper and Consultation: Government’s Official Response
Chris Philp Excerpts(11 months, 4 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
I am pleased to announce to the House that the Government are today publishing our official response to the fire reform White Paper and consultation.
Last year we published our White Paper, “Reforming Our Fire and Rescue Service” (CP 670), to gauge the public and sector’s views on how we wished to drive reform within fire and rescue services. Our proposals were built on the lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic as well as the recommendations from His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services’ independent inspections, challenging national report findings and the Grenfell Tower inquiry.
In the period since the White Paper was published, further challenges in the fire sector have been the focus of public and parliamentary debate. I refer, in particular, to the independent review of culture in the London Fire Brigade and the HMICFRS national spotlight report into values and culture. These reports highlighted misconduct in multiple fire and rescue services and uncovered totally unacceptable behaviours. Our White Paper response sets out our ambition to improve integrity across the sector.
The feedback on our proposals has allowed us to refine our next steps and announce today our package of reform, which will focus on the areas that have the biggest impact for the public and for fire professionals: developing a profession to be proud of and ensuring that fire services do more to put the public first. These include:
Introducing a professional college of fire and rescue to raise standards and strengthen leadership
Developing provision for fire chiefs to have operational independence
Tasking the National Joint Council to review the pay negotiation mechanism
Taking action to improve integrity and culture in fire and rescue services through improved training, more open recruitment practices and working towards a statutory code of ethics for fire and rescue employees.
Our fire and rescue professionals deserve our support as they not only respond to a changing world but also seek to develop and strengthen their own capabilities. This consultation response sets out how we can work together with partners across the fire sector to deliver this.
I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone who has engaged with us on our White Paper and consultation. Whether they have helped us shape our proposals or provided feedback on how they can work, their help has ensured we can drive forward much-needed and long overdue reform for our fire and rescue services and ensure the best possible service for the public.
The Government’s response has been laid before Parliament as a Command Paper (CP 993) and will be available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-our-fire-and-rescue-service
[HCWS115]
Criminal Justice Bill (First sitting)
Chris Philp Excerpts(11 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Alex Norris
Q
Chief Constable Stephens: Last week, we held the chief constables’ council in Edinburgh—that is, the gathering of all chief constables. One of the topics on the agenda was the financial resilience of policing. Our current estimate is that there is somewhere in the region of a £300-billion cash deficit in policing, which requires some difficult and careful choices about resourcing priorities. Where new provisions come forward—indeed, this was a recommendation in the recent productivity review of policing—they should be costed. Whereas we welcome many, if not all, provisions in the Bill—I am sure we will come on to talk about some of the caveats—there are no costings with them, and we will need to work through, in a very detailed fashion, what the additional burdens on policing will be.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
Good morning, Gavin. Let me start by putting on record my thanks to you, as chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and to all your colleagues in policing for the work that you and officers up and down the country do daily. You put yourselves in the line of danger to protect the rest of us, and I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee and the whole House when I put on record our thanks to you and to police officers up and down the country for the work that you do daily to keep the rest of us safe.
Chief Constable Stephens: Thank you, Minister.
Chris Philp
Q
Chief Constable Stephens: Clearly, at local level, the work of community safety partnerships is really important to this. In different localities, they take different forms, but generally, in most borough and district areas, for example, there will be a meeting that talks about places that need particular attention from a range of partners.
If rough sleeping was causing a nuisance, we would not see that as an issue for policing solely, but we would take part in any joint problem-solving plans in order to address concerns. The issue for us would be if, for example, it was a place where criminality was being orchestrated or where people were particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of crime themselves. Clearly, there is a policing interest in that. We would support local partners, but what we would not want to see is a position where communities turn to policing in order to address the issue of rough sleeping on the streets. There needs to be something more than that that we would want to address in partnership with others.
Chris Philp
Q
Chief Constable Stephens: Absolutely, yes. My experience in many years of policing is that communities often do not make a distinction between criminality and antisocial behaviour. If things are affecting their day-to-day lives, they often consider some of those things to be a crime, even if they are not on the statute book, and expect action against them. In this particular instance, we just need to be cautious that we are not using policing powers in order to address a wider social problem—particularly, for example, where it might be due to mental ill health and other complex factors.
Chris Philp
Q
Would you agree that the warrantless powers of entry contained in the Bill, to enter premises to recover stolen goods where there is no other quick way of doing that and where there is a reasonable suspicion that the stolen goods are on the premises, will help the police to recover stolen goods and to arrest thieves who might otherwise go undetected and unpunished?
Chief Constable Stephens: Such a provision would be supportive to operational policing if implemented carefully and thoughtfully, and in conjunction with the other powers that currently exist. One of the topics about stolen property that has led to this provision is the theft of mobile devices that might emit a signal as to where they currently are. It is the view of police that those systems are not currently accurate enough to give a precise location on every occasion.
Clearly, there will be a significant difference between a rural area with dispersed properties and a dense urban environment where you might have maisonettes and blocks of flats when it comes to being able to precisely locate a stolen item. There are available to us under other legislation very intrusive techniques, to be used covertly, whereby we can accurately pinpoint devices, but that is not what is envisaged, I believe, in this particular provision, and we would need to exercise the powers carefully.
Such a provision needs some level of authority. The Bill mentions an inspector authority, which would be commensurate with other search powers following arrest, for example. That would need to be used in conjunction with additional intelligence, bearing in mind that that power could be used at premises where we might not suspect the people inside to have anything to do with the crime. If we suspected that they did, other powers are available to us, such as power of arrest, power of search following arrest and inspector authority to search the premises. The powers contained in the Bill around searching the premises would not cover searching people within those premises, or, again, multiple occupancy.
The general tenet is, yes, this would be very operationally useful. There would need to be careful consideration about the interfacing with existing policing powers and the level of authority needed to exercise the powers. Fundamentally, in exercising those powers, we would need to maintain the consent of communities that they are being used proportionately, lawfully and only where absolutely necessary.
Chris Philp
Thank you, Gavin. I have one more question. As you know, we have been debating retail crime a great deal. The retail crime action plan, which Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, in consultation with the Government, published just a few weeks ago, was extremely welcome. One thing that we have debated in Parliament, including during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which the hon. Member for Stockton South—I mean the hon. Member for Stockton North; we have to be very careful when referring to Stockton these days—and I remember very fondly was whether we needed a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker.
In that piece of legislation, we ended up not creating a separate offence and instead making it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim is a retail worker. From a policing point of view, do you consider that that provides adequate protection for retail workers? Do you think that there would be any benefit in creating a separate offence of assaulting a retail worker, or would you be concerned that, if you did that, you could then ask, “What about teachers? What about local councillors? What about minors?” and so on?
Chief Constable Stephens: On additional offences, we have provisions relating to emergency service workers, which is right and proper. In relation to retail crime, the important thing for policing is that we get a grip on the scale of the emerging problem, hence the action plan that you mentioned, Minster.
Police received over a quarter of a million reports of retail theft in the financial year 2022-23, and there has been a 29% rise in the number of arrests. We are clearly taking action, but there is much more to do. I would be concerned if we started adding to a list of additional assault categories, because where is the limit? People who provide vital public services—I would say that retail is a vital public service, and it is important to the vibrancy of local communities and so on—are worthy of particular consideration, but it is a question of where the limits would be.
The Chair
Before I bring Jess in, four further Members have caught my eye. You have nine minutes between you, so bear that in mind.
Alex Norris
Q
Gregor McGill: It is fair to say that resources are tight at the moment, so any new offences coming into the system will affect not only the CPS but other parts of the criminal justice system—the courts and the prisons—so that will have to be factored in. We are in the process of talking with the Treasury about resources, but that is a relevant factor. We do not know how many cases this will involve. What I can say is that our corporate position is that these will be useful offences to be able to work closely with our colleagues in the National Crime Agency and wider policing to affect criminality, but you are quite right that we will have to keep our eye on the resource implications of them and come back to Ministers if we find that there are issues.
Graeme Biggar: May I just add a comment? For a lot of these particular offences, it will shortcut our investigations, because at the moment we are finding 3D-printed firearms or concealments, but we have to do a whole bunch of extra work to be able to reach the criminal threshold for an actual charge, so in some senses this will actually make things easier for us.
Chris Philp
Q
Graeme Biggar: The drafting for those items does everything I think we need to see regarding both possession and supply. There are other issues that, over time, we will want to think about adding. It is very helpful to see that the Bill allows a mechanism for secondary legislation to be brought forward in order to add other items. One issue that we are looking at currently is childlike sexual abuse dolls. We can seize them, as it is an offence to bring them across the border, but it is not an offence to possess one in the UK. That is an issue we would want to look at adding to that section.
Chris Philp
Q
Graeme Biggar: Yes, it would. It is really important for us to be able to use facial recognition more. I know that is an issue you have been championing. We use it within the NCA, but there is more we need to be doing within the NCA and across police forces in the round.
Chris Philp
Q
Baljit Ubhey: I think it is probably unnecessary. I would echo what Gavin has said about building confidence with the retail community. In the code for Crown prosecutors, it is a public interest factor in favour of prosecuting—where the crime is committed against someone who is conducting a public service—so we already treat that more seriously, and obviously there are a range of offences that cover a range of different assaults.
Chris Philp
Q
Baljit Ubhey: I do not think it is necessary.
Chris Philp
Q
My next question is again for the CPS. In relation to the knife crime provisions, some of them are in this Bill and others are being taken forward via secondary legislation, of course; I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for her campaigning on this issue. Do you feel that the new offence being created, of possession of a weapon with intent to use unlawful violence, is a helpful addition to the statute book and might enable those who intend to use serious violence but have not yet committed it to be given longer sentences?
Baljit Ubhey: We recognise that this bridges the gap between simple possession and the different circumstances where violence is threatened, so we think it is a helpful addition.
Gregor McGill: It mirrors the offence in the Firearms Act 2023, which prosecutors use a lot and which is a very useful tool, so there is no reason to think that this would not be an equally useful tool.
Chris Philp
Q
Gregor McGill: Yes.
Chris Philp
Q
Gregor McGill: They are used relatively frequently now; we use them a lot with our NCA colleagues. They are probably not used as much as they could be with National Police Chiefs’ Council forces, so we could use them more there.
I was part of the group that negotiated introducing these orders in 2007. The limitation then was that they were not to be used as an alternative to prosecution, so I think that sometimes a rather restrictive view was taken about their use. They have been used a lot after a conviction in a Crown court trial, but they have not been used a lot as a stand-alone measure in the High Court, so there is more that we can do in consultation with our law enforcement colleagues to make sure that we use these measures more frequently.
There are some risks in using them in the High Court. As you know, costs follow the event in the High Court and cost orders can be high. Also, although the standard of proof is said to be on the balance of probabilities and the civil standards, we are seeing that what is required to obtain an order inch up in the High Court to close to the criminal standard. Therefore, by the time you have gone through all that and you are up near the criminal standard, if you have got the evidence, often you can prosecute rather than going for the civil sanction, and that is part of the problem.
However, I do not think any of this is not resolvable with proper communication between ourselves and our law enforcement colleagues. But these orders are a useful tool.
Chris Philp
Q
Gregor McGill: On the whole, I think there have been some concerns because you are putting limitations on people’s ability to do things without them being convicted of a criminal offence. There is always a nervousness about that and a request for really quite strong evidence before that is done. I understand that, but it is an issue sometimes.
Chris Philp
Q
If I have time to do so, I would just like to ask a question to the NCA and to the CPS about the confiscation regime and the changes to that regime proposed in this Bill. I think that the Committee would be interested in hearing your assessment of the likely impact of the changes proposed in the Bill, particularly in clause 32.
Graeme Biggar: We really support these changes. There has been a detailed Law Commission review that has underpinned them. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has been transformative for law enforcement, but it is also quite complex, and we have evolved ways of making it work.
All the provisions that are in the Bill, and there are obviously an awful lot, will simplify and codify some of what is current practice. It will take some of the work out of doing things; it will enable us to get to resolutions more quickly. It is an awful lot of individual measures, so it is quite hard to put a figure on how much more we will seize or how much less effort we will put into seizing, but we expect to be able to get to more. How much more? It is quite lumpy, as you will know, Minister. Some very large seizures of tens or hundreds of millions can change how much we get each year, but we expect it to make it easier for us, and expect to seize more as a result.
Chris Philp
Q
Graeme Biggar: Yes and yes, and we fed a lot into the Law Commission review. We looked closely at what they came up with, and we fed into the Government consultation. Yes, we are content.
Chris Philp
Q
Graeme Biggar: Yes, we are happy. You did not direct the question to me on SCPOs, so unbelievably quickly on that, two things that will be easier as a result are our ability in the NCA or the police to put an SCPO directly to the court—in consultation with the CPS, rather than putting the burden on to the CPS—and the standard set of conditions. At the moment, we have to set out and justify every single one; in the future, we will be able to draw on the standard set of conditions, which will also reduce the bureaucracy. That should ease the burden on SCPOs as well.
Chris Philp
Q
Gregor McGill: We had full consultation with the Law Commission. These proposals have been lifted out almost entirely from the Law Commission proposals, and we worked with the commission and supported the proposals, so we support them. I cannot say whether it will lead to more—we will have to see—but what it will do is to make the process more transparent and better for victims.
What we are particularly pleased with is the idea that you can go back to court to increase a confiscation order, which I think is better for victims. At the moment, we have a workaround, where we can go back to raise a confiscation order, but if the perpetrator is prepared to pay money direct to the victims, we will allow that money to go to victims, rather than towards the confiscation order. Putting this on a statutory footing, putting hidden assets on a statutory footing, and being able to be realistic where it is clear that some orders will never be enforced will improve transparency and the whole system.
Chris Philp
Q
Gregor McGill: I have not personally, but my specialist proceeds of crime team in the CPS tell me that they have.
Chris Philp
And they are happy?
Gregor McGill: And they are happy.
Graeme Biggar: The Minister gave me a last chance to come in, and I said no, but there was one other thing we would appreciate. At the moment, people who are subject to these orders will sometimes stall, they do not meet their deadlines and the process can drag on for years—we have just concluded a case in which the conviction was in 2018 and we only got the order last month—so amendments to the Bill that would require people to meet the deadlines, giving them a penalty if they did not, would be helpful.
Chris Philp
That is a very good point, which we will undertake to take away to look at. It sounds like a very fair request. I will get on to it now.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Q
Graeme Biggar: We are getting to definitions of the different tech companies. The social media companies are not often the ones that have the IP addresses and so on. We absolutely support this measure, and we have argued for it in the consultations on both this Bill and the Computer Misuse Act.
By and large, the organisations in the UK—the registers here of IP addresses—do act when we put a request in to take down, but not in every single case. Internationally, that happens less often. This would give us that ability—we absolutely would go for voluntary first, and we should stick with that process, because it largely works, but if that does not work, we would then be able to compel the suspension of the domain or the IP address. That would help.
Internationally, we have less success. The very existence of a court order that most other countries have and then companies act on would be really help. It would still be hard to implement in some countries, but it would still increase the amount of positive action taken on the basis of our requests.
Criminal Justice Bill (Second sitting)
Chris Philp ExcerptsTuesday 12th December 2023
(11 months, 4 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 View all Criminal Justice Bill 2023-24 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 12 December 2023 - (12 Dec 2023)
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
Q
Rebecca, thank you for joining us this afternoon. In response to the shadow Minister, you raised questions about reducing the minimum age for community protection notices from 16 to 10, which is enclosed within clause 67 of the Bill. Do you agree that bringing 10 to 15-year-olds into the scope of CPNs provides an opportunity to halt a path into criminality that might otherwise occur? Combined with that, there is an opportunity to make other interventions to try to prevent the young person from getting into crime.
Rebecca Bryant: It is using a hammer to crack a nut. For 10 and 11-year-olds in particular who are on the cusp of causing antisocial behaviour, there are many other tools available to partners. I am not necessarily thinking about fining parents, because a lot of the young people who are involved in antisocial behaviour come from more deprived backgrounds, and breaching and fining is not going to enable change.
What we are looking for is a change of behaviour in the longer term. Yes, we are looking to prevent in the first instance, but then we look for change. Being able to engage with a young person and their parents by putting in positive mentoring and other youth interventions would surely have longer term success than a community protection notice would have. Also, there is a community protection warning before a notice; that kind of warning and discussion between a parent, a child and the authorities, which could be the housing provider, the local authority or the police, has much more impact when you are offering a positive intervention.
Chris Philp
Q
Rebecca Bryant: More extreme antisocial behaviour is often a criminal offence, so potentially there would be criminality and therefore a charge. That may be welcome in some cases, but not a blanket reduction to say that anybody from the age of 10 could have a CPN, which could then lead to breach and fine. As I say, from our members’ perspective, that seems too young.
Chris Philp
Q
Rebecca Bryant: First, our members absolutely welcome the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. It is outdated and clunky, and has not been fit for purpose for many years. The replacement powers suggested in the Bill are generally welcomed by our members. I think there is some movement around more community rehabilitation. The people we are talking about here are particularly vulnerable members of society who have been through significant trauma or who have significant mental health problems, drugs and alcohol addiction, and their behaviours and rough sleeping are due to those underlying facts. Thinking about community rehabilitation and support to change is as important as moving people on and creating the powers to do that.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Q
Harvey Redgrave: No, it needs to be attached to more resourcing.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Marsh, can I continue the line of questioning about the warrantless power of entry where it is necessary to recover stolen goods when there is no time to get a warrant? Andy Cooke just mentioned that the inspectorate would keep a close eye on whether that power, if granted by Parliament, is being exercised properly. Could you confirm for the Committee’s benefit whether you would in due course, if this were passed, produce some authorised professional practice to make sure that police forces exercise the power in a way that is responsible?
Andy Marsh: Minister Philp, as you are aware I am strongly supportive of police officers conducting all reasonable lines of inquiry to catch criminals and keep communities safe. It caused me great frustration as a chief if ever a letter landed on my desk to say, “My bike’s on sale on eBay, my daughter’s phone is in a house and you said you couldn’t do anything”.
We have already started our plans to hardwire this new power into our guidance, our training and our standard setting to do our very best, along with working in partnership with His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to ensure that we use this power consistently in two respects. I do not want to see circumstances where the power should be used, where it is not and people could be caught and property returned; and I certainly do not want it to be used in such a way that would undermine confidence in policing. As in many things in policing, we need to get this just right. The College has a fundamental role in achieving consistency and getting it just right.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Marsh: I do.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Marsh: I am.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Marsh: It should be a very significant moment in policing. The first code of ethics was put in place in 2014. I could explain to the Committee why we think we are able to improve on that, but we have to talk about why it is going to make a big difference. The College is able to put a code of practice in place which requires a chief constable to have due regard.
We wanted to make that code of practice as strong as possible around a duty of candour, but there were many other things in it—for example, a duty on a chief constable to ensure ethical behaviour in a force, through their processes, policies, reward recognition, promotion, application of the victims code, challenging unprofessional behaviour, looking after staff welfare, dealing with misconduct and vetting properly.
Even before we get to the duty of candour, which is very strong, this is the strongest lever the College of Policing can pull in order to bring about cultural change around standards in policing. We will be working with the launch of the second two parts of the code in January, which is different from the legal code. We will be working on supporting policing over a change programme to secure that cultural change, over many months—possibly years.
Chris Philp
Q
As you know, we made assaulting a public-facing worker a statutory aggravating factor for other assault offences in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. We have already created a separate offence of assaulting emergency workers. Some people now say that we should have a separate offence for assaulting a retail worker, to give it more prominence. Others say, “Well, where do you draw the line?” You could have an offence for assaulting a teacher, a local councillor—and so it might go on. What is your opinion about whether there is any use in creating that separate, stand-alone offence?
Andy Cooke: I think I am right in saying it is an offence in Scotland, but I do not know how much that has resulted in a change in offending behaviour. I have not particularly looked at that point. It is a question of where you draw the line. The key issue is not whether a new offence should be constructed for assaulting a shop worker. It is more about how well, or not, policing is dealing with assaults, full stop; and how well police officers are dealing with the offence of shoplifting and the ancillary offences that sometimes go with that. I am aware that the National Police Chiefs’ Council is doing an awful lot of work around this at the moment, working with the PCC for Sussex and yourself, Minister.
Certainly, there has been a large reduction in the number of positive outcomes or detections for shoplifting over the last five or six years. That is not acceptable. It is in line with an awful lot of the other core charge and outcome rates that we have seen across policing. This is more about ensuring that the police across England and Wales treat this more seriously, particularly where there are aggravated offences alongside, such as assault. That is what Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman is attempting to do on behalf of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Rather long-windedly, to come back to your initial question, without seeing the evidence for how that reduces offences or increases detections, I would not necessarily be in favour of a separate offence.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Cooke: All those issues will be captured by the police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy inspections that we do every two years on every police force across England and Wales. We will look at reasonable lines of inquiry particularly and at the overall outcome rates—not just charge rates, because the out-of-court disposals are important as well, as it is whatever is the best sanction to fit the individual and the community at the end of the day. We look right across that to ensure that policing is doing what it should be doing, as we do every week of the year, and will continue to do so.
This is a really important issue for me, because these are crimes that strike at the heart of communities and neighbourhoods. It is really important that policing gets confidence and trust back. Whether that is the confidence and trust of shop workers or across neighbourhoods and communities, whichever way it is, a large part of getting that confidence and trust back is by the police showing themselves to be effective in what they do. The police need to increase their efforts to do so.
Chris Philp
Q
Andy Marsh: The College is supporting policing with guidance around dealing with retail crime, particularly persistent offenders. I agree with everything that has been said: much more needs to be done in order to deal with this crime type.
In relation to the specific offence, I can see that there are two purposes to it. The first is that it might well act as a deterrent. The College of Policing holds the evidence base for policing. We cannot categorically tell you there is an evidence base for deterrence, but that would be one of the reasons for putting it in place. I think the second, more important reason is for Parliament to signal its concern about a particularly disruptive crime that damages the fabric of our communities and society. This sends out a signal that the police need to do better. I am supportive of the proposal.
Chris Philp
Q
Moving on to a proposal contained in clause 21, which relates to giving police access to driver licence records—particularly the photograph—which currently are only readily accessible for road traffic purposes. The idea is that they can be used for facial recognition searches, where an image is retrieved from a crime scene from CCTV. That might include a shoplifting offence. This would make the DVLA driving licence database searchable by the police, in the same way that other databases are, including for facial recognition purposes. In your view, both Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke, would that assist the police in investigations? Is that a measure you would support?
Andy Marsh: I am supportive.
Andy Cooke: Yes, I support it. What goes alongside that is ensuring that the actions of the police on facial recognition are ethical and lawful. I am a big supporter of facial recognition used in the right way, and I think that opening up that database would benefit the detection of crime.
Chris Philp
Q
Do you agree with the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, in saying that this measure will help chief constables better to manage their workforce and root out officers guilty of misconduct where appropriate and where necessary?
Andy Cooke: It would certainly help in relation to that. At the moment, the only recourse is judicial review, which as we know can be exceptionally expensive and difficult, so I see no problem at all in having that right of appeal for a chief constable.
Andy Marsh: The code of ethics, which we have just been talking about, puts a responsibility—in fact, a duty—on a chief constable to discharge their responsibilities around standards, conduct and behaviour; and I have been in a position, as a chief, where I have not been able to do that because ultimately I haven’t had the decision on who I ultimately have serving alongside me as a police officer. They are not employees—they are servants of the Crown. I have found that to be a deeply unsatisfactory position, so I am supportive of this.
Jess Phillips
Q
Andy Marsh: Yes, I do. That is a periodic hard stop, let us say, where there is a full review, but there should be a number of different control measures, both automated data searches and a duty—a responsibility to report and self-report—that will occur in real time between those vetting periods.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Lewis: I am afraid that is not something that we have looked at.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: Many paragraphs of the schedule do implement our recommendations. We are extremely pleased to see our recommendations implemented extremely swiftly. This project only reported over a year ago. We obviously do think that the changes we recommended would make a difference in the ways I mentioned earlier, which included improving enforcement and the ability to seize offenders’ assets, limiting unrealistic and in some cases unfair orders, and allowing victims to receive compensation more promptly.
We estimated at the time that the reforms could lead to an extra £8 million in funds being retrieved from criminals in England and Wales every year. That obviously helps to return more money that can be used on public services, for instance. I am happy to talk in more detail about specific recommendations if that would be helpful.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: One of the things we thought was most important, in addition to trying to make the system more efficient, was to balance it with also making it more fair. In terms of efficiency, we recommended things like expediting the setting of a confiscation timetable, which is in paragraph 12, and creating a settlement process, which already happens informally—we call it EROC, which stands for early resolution of confiscation. That has been implemented in paragraph 13. We note also that better enforcement will improve the recovery of funds.
There have been several recommendations that have been implemented in order to improve enforcement. Enforcement plans, which largely implement our recommendations for contingent orders, are in paragraph 16; and allowing enforcement to take place in the Crown court as well as the magistrates court is in paragraph 17. We think that those will make the system much more efficient and will radically improve enforcement.
In terms of fairness, it is really important that orders accurately deflect a defendant’s benefit from crime. There are two ways in which we have recommended, and the Government have introduced clauses to implement, improving the fairness of confiscation orders. One concerns where someone has made only a temporary gain—for example, a money launderer who allows their bank account to be used to transfer £1,000,000 but gets paid £10,000 for doing that. When the gain is only temporary their benefit from crime is not really £1,000,000, given that they do not get to keep that. At the moment, orders can be made in the amount of the temporary gain and that recommendation has been taken up. I will find the paragraph for you in a moment.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: I am happy to address that. The temporary gain issue is in paragraph 8. The other improvement to the calculation of benefit is in circumstances where the defendant has already disgorged some of the proceeds of their crime—so, for example, that may have been forfeited or seized by the state already. That should not be double counted, so that the defendant then has to pay back something that has already been seized by the state. That is in paragraph 5. We are very pleased to see those fairness recommendations, as well as the efficiency gains.
In terms of deadlines, ultimately there is a deadline: it is called the default term of imprisonment. When a confiscation order is made against a defendant, a term of imprisonment in default is set. The defendant may end up serving this period of imprisonment if it is activated by the court, on the basis that the defendant has demonstrated either wilful refusal to pay the confiscation order or culpable neglect in failing to pay it. The defendant can of course secure release from the default term by paying the confiscation debt. In the consultation paper we cite a case where, as the person is being taken off to prison, finally the confiscation debt is settled. So, we do know that that does work—at least, anecdotally.
In the consultation paper we provisionally proposed something that would be even more stringent than that. At the moment the defendant is released halfway through the default term. After that, there is no more threat of imprisonment. We provisionally proposed that the defendant should be released only on licence, similar to the way in which life prisoners are released, for example. I think that was probably our most controversial proposal. There were some people who were in favour of that, but lots of people thought it extremely draconian; another sector thought that it really would not work, and within that was His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. In other words, probation is not really designed to get people to pay their confiscation orders; it has another purpose. It has a rehabilitative purpose.
Ultimately, we decided that there are better ways to try to ensure enforcement. So, yes, there is the default term that remains, and that is a real threat to defendants. However, we also recommended confiscation assistance orders, requiring the defendant to attend enforcement hearings after the default term has been served and requiring the provision of financial information with penalties for non-compliance or providing false information. The first two of those—assistance orders and requiring the defendant to attend enforcement hearings after serving the default term—are both in schedule 4.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: Again, we do not have a view; it is not something that we have looked at. Obviously, in our hate crime project we looked at circumstances where sentences were aggravated because of hostility towards a protected characteristic, and we recommended equalising the protection that the various protected characteristics carry so that every protected characteristic would have aggravated offences, as well as enhanced sentencing for those offences that do not have aggravated versions. However, we have not looked specifically at the individually aggravated offences such as the ones for assaulting a police officer and so on, I am afraid.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: We do not have a corporate view, because we have not done work on it. You are right to worry that one is drawing very fine lines, and once one has added one offence, there is another group of people who are not included in the bespoke offences. One ends up with a proliferation of bespoke offences for different categories of function.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Lewis: I do not think that I would go further than that. I think that concern should be considered, but I do not think that I am in a position to have a personal view, having not looked at it in any depth.
Violent Crime and Antisocial Behaviour: Carshalton and Wallington
Chris Philp Excerpts(12 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). I congratulate him on securing this Adjournment debate, and on his extremely powerful and eloquent speech, which furthers his tireless campaigning on this issue, often in partnership with his constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who has contributed already this evening.
This is an incredibly important topic. I say that not just as the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, but as the constituency neighbour, on the other side, of my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington. I am a fellow south-London MP, so I, too, see at first hand the effect of knife crime and serious violence on our communities. In particular in Croydon, but I think across all of south London, we felt for the family of Elianne Andam, the 15-year-old girl who was brutally murdered on the morning of 27 September. The whole community was incredibly moved and mourns her loss. I went to her funeral with many others. About 1,000 people attended that funeral, just a few weeks ago. It had a profound impact on the whole borough, and more widely across south London, and we all need to redouble our efforts to end the scourge of knife crime and serious violence.
Although serious violence is down by 25% over the last four years, and even though homicide has reduced this year compared with last year and is lower than it was in 2010, every single death, and every single incident of serious violence or homicide, is an individual tragedy, and we need to do more to get the figures down even further. On the Government’s work in this area, we have delivered record police numbers, with 149,566 across England and Wales—more police than we have ever had before. That includes more police than we have ever had across London, in the Metropolitan Police.
However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington pointed out, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, as London’s police and crime commissioner, has been pretty deficient in managing the police force. Although there are record numbers in the Met thanks to Government funding, there could have been an extra 1,089 officers. Government funding was available to recruit those officers to the Met, but the Mayor of London, thanks to his ineptitude, failed to recruit them. Knife crime in London has also increased on his watch. He shamefully made a claim to the contrary and was publicly rebuked by the Office for National Statistics for making misleading claims. Clearly, the Mayor of London needs to do a lot more to tackle knife crime.
Let me set out some of the things that the Government are doing in this area. One of them is funding violence reduction units across the 20 police force areas where violent crime is the most serious. Those violence reduction units, which are managed by the police and crime commissioners but are funded by the Government, are designed to make early interventions to identify people—often young people—who are on the wrong track and try to put them on the right track, whether that is through educational interventions, social services work, sporting activity or whatever it may be. We intend to continue supporting and expanding the work of violence reduction units, supported by the Youth Endowment Fund, which has received £200 million of Government money.
We also want to stop the supply of knives getting on to our streets in the first place. That is why we are legislating, both through the Criminal Justice Bill and through secondary legislation, to: ban certain zombie knives and machetes that are currently legal; double the sentence for selling knives to under-18s; and give the police additional powers to seize legal knives that are held in private if they think those knives are going to be used for criminal purposes. As for selling knives online, the Online Safety Act 2023—which received Royal Assent just a few weeks ago—will, when fully in force, require online marketplaces such as Facebook Marketplace to proactively prevent the sale of illegal knives online, again choking off the supply of those knives into our communities.
Elliot Colburn
Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to three people? First, Ray and Vi Donovan are an incredible couple living in my constituency who helped bring a knife bin to the centre of Sutton—some truly horrific things have been found in that knife bin, but thankfully, they are off the streets. Secondly, as the Minister mentioned the Online Safety Act, will he join me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who was the Minister who took that Act through Parliament in its final stages and managed to secure that important measure to stop knives being sold?
Chris Philp
I certainly join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to his constituents and their work on the knife bin—we need to have more of those around—and my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam did indeed take the Online Safety Bill through its concluding stages in the House of Commons. I was involved in an earlier stage of that Bill’s passage, but he was the Minister who, after a number of years and a number of Ministers, got it over the line.
It is also important to take action on the streets, and although it sometimes attracts controversy, stop and search is an important way of getting knives off our streets. Each month, the Metropolitan police takes about 400 knives off the street through stop and search, which is an important part of the police’s arsenal when done lawfully and respectfully. I would like to see the police be more proactive, using stop and search more—using it more confidently and more widely—to get those knives off the street. Some people raise concerns about disproportionality, but if we look at the success rate for finding knives or drugs on those people who are stopped and searched, the percentage of stop and searches resulting in a find of knives or drugs—which is typically between 25% and 28%—is virtually exactly the same across all ethnic groups. That suggests that allegations that the police are behaving unfairly are without foundation, so I would like to see stop and search used more.
The Home Office is also investing in the development of technology that will be able to covertly scan for knives as people walk down the street. That technology is a year or so away from being deployable, but it is something we are investing in, and it is something I would like to see deployed on our streets. We are also investing in hotspot patrolling: through a project called Grip, hotspot patrols take place in areas where serious violence is a particular problem. We are also running antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols in some force areas. Those hotspot patrols will be rolled out across the whole country from next April—we found that where they take place, antisocial behaviour and serious violence drop noticeably, so we are going to be increasing funding for hotspot patrols across the country from April.
Finally, I draw the House’s attention to the importance of catching perpetrators, and of using technology to do so. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned the availability of CCTV footage these days: a lot of images are now available, whether that is CCTV footage from shops or local authorities, Ring doorbells in people’s houses, dashcam footage or footage taken on mobile phones. The facial recognition algorithm that the police can run, which takes an image of a criminal committing a crime from any of those things—CCTV, mobile phones and so on—and runs it through the police database, can now produce remarkably accurate matches even when the image is not particularly clear. I therefore urge all police forces to redouble their efforts to always run those images through the police national database and to do the facial recognition search. The evidence so far suggests that many perpetrators who would previously not have been caught now can be caught using retrospective facial recognition, which is what I have described.
I thank again my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington for securing this debate. It is a really important topic not just in south London or London more widely, but across the whole country. A lot of progress has been made, but there is more to do. Every single injury or death is a tragedy and all of us in Parliament and in Government must work together with the police and others to ensure that we do everything humanly possible to end the scourge of knife crime, which is far too frequent at the moment.
Question put and agreed to.
Violence and Abuse towards the Retail Workforce
Chris Philp Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your august chairmanship, Sir Edward, and to follow—for the first time, I think—the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), whom I welcome to her place in the shadow Front-Bench team.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for securing this important debate, which follows one on the Floor of the House. The Opposition day debate this afternoon was on a broadly similar topic, but it is good to have a further opportunity to discuss the matter in a little more detail and in slightly less heated circumstances.
Before I respond to hon. Members’ very good points, I want to say that I agree with the assessment that retail outlets are the lifeblood of our community. They are often centres not only for shopping, but for meeting others. They are far more vibrant than just buying something online and having it delivered to one’s doorstep in a cardboard box.
I also agree that it is unacceptable that retail workers are suffering from assaults and threats. I have particular sympathy with them because my very first job in south London was stacking shelves, among other things, in a Sainsbury’s not far from my current constituency, although I must confess that unlike Labour Members, I never joined a trade union.
Chris Philp
I thank Members for their kind entreaties, but I will probably give it a miss.
This is a serious issue and the Government are taking it very seriously. Of course, crime in general is coming down. The crime survey for England and Wales, which according to the Office for National Statistics is the only reliable measure of long-term crime trends, shows that overall crime is down 10% year on year, and like-for-like crime is down 56% since 2010. That is very welcome, but—in common with other countries in the western world, including the United States, France and Germany—we have seen a worrying increase in shoplifting and assaults against retail workers in the past year or two. As I say, the phenomenon is not confined to the UK; it is wider than that.
Although it is welcome that prosecutions for shoplifting have increased by 29% since last year, the Government said in response to a number of retailers, including the Co-op and others, that more needs to be done. That is why I sat down over the summer with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for serious organised and acquisitive crime—Amanda Blakeman, the chief constable of north Wales—to talk about developing a police action plan to do a lot more.
That action plan was published with the agreement of the police four or five weeks ago and was launched at No. 10 Downing Street. It contains a number of important components. The first is a commitment that the police will always follow up all reasonable lines of inquiry in relation to all crime. That is relevant to all kinds of crime types, but shoplifting is one of the most important. That means that if there is evidence that can be followed up, such as CCTV footage, the police will always do that regardless of the value of the goods stolen.
In the past six to 12 months, the artificial intelligence algorithm that enables facial matching has become a lot more sophisticated. If an image is received from a crime scene—it could be from a Ring doorbell, a dashcam, a mobile phone or CCTV anywhere, including in a shop—as it should always be under this new commitment, it can be run through the police national database, which contains millions of facial images from custody records. The algorithm is so good at matching now that even blurred or partially obscured images can be matched. The commitment always to follow lines of inquiry and always run images through the facial recognition database will lead to a lot more offenders being caught—shoplifters, but others as well. I set the target for police forces across England and Wales to double their use of facial recognition searches this year.
The first element is always to follow all reasonable lines of inquiry, with a particular emphasis on CCTV and facial recognition. Secondly, there is a police commitment to prioritise attending incidents of shoplifting in person where that is necessary to secure evidence; where there has been an assault on a retail worker, which is obviously relevant to today’s debate; and where an offender has been detained by, for example, store security staff. I heard statistics from the Co-op suggesting that where store security staff had detained an offender, the police had attended only in a quarter of cases. That is frankly unacceptable. We now have a commitment from policing to prioritise attendance in all cases where an offender has been detained. I would like Members of Parliament of all parties and police and crime commissioners to hold the police to account for delivering that.
Thirdly, the plan contains a commitment to use data analytics to identify and go after prolific offenders—that is, identifying what is often quite a small number of people committing a large volume of offences and specifically going after them. Fourthly—it may have been the hon. Member for Blaydon who mentioned this—there is an element of serious and organised crime, with organised criminal gangs targeting retail outlets. Project Pegasus, led by the Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne in partnership with 16 retailers, gathers data from those retailers and passes it to OPAL, which is the police data analysis centre for serious organised crime, including acquisitive crime, to identify the criminal gangs and go after them. That is partly funded by those retailers but is supported and organised by the police.
Those are the four components: following all lines of inquiry, including CCTV and facial recognition; targeting prolific offenders; attending incidents a lot more frequently; and going after serious and organised crime. That package together will lead to a significant increase in the number of offenders who are caught and the number of assaults prevented, and we will see that 29% increase in prosecutions go up considerably more.
Navendu Mishra
I appreciate the points that the Minister has made about policing and meeting the Co-op. Will he give a commitment to the House that he will meet USDAW, which is the sectoral trade union for retail workers, because the people who are at the forefront of this crisis are the low-paid retail workers themselves?
Chris Philp
Yes, I would be happy to do so—it would seem churlish to decline such an invitation.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned wages. I observe in passing that the minimum wage will go up by about 10% from next April to £11.44 an hour. That is quite a considerable increase, well above the rate of inflation. Of course, under the last Labour Government, it was only £5.93. If we adjust for inflation and the increase in the tax-free threshold, the take-home wages of someone working full time on the minimum wage are 30% higher than 13 years ago, which is welcome.
The Greater Manchester police were mentioned by, I think, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I commend Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who is doing a great job with GMP and led the way by implementing this concept of always following up all evidence, which seems like common sense, but it was not being universally done. He implemented that in Greater Manchester about a year and a half ago, and it led to a 44% increase in arrests and prosecutions. It is exactly that approach that worked under Stephen Watson’s leadership that we are applying nationwide, including to shoplifting.
I will say a word or two on several other points raised in the debate. The first is the offence of assaulting a retail worker. We know that Scotland has a separate offence and that there have been calls to have a similar one here. Of course assaulting a retail worker is an offence: it is assault. It could be common assault, grievous bodily harm, grievous bodily harm with intent and so on. It is a criminal offence and, as I believe the hon. Member for Blaydon acknowledged, we legislated in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to make it a statutory aggravating factor where the victim is a public-facing worker—that includes retailers and others. That means that a judge is obliged, in statute, to pass a higher sentence than they otherwise would, in recognition of the fact that the victim is a public-facing worker.
Chris Philp
Obviously, as I have said, that is already an offence—it is assault, it is illegal and it is a criminal offence. We need to make sure that the culprit is identified by the police and that those cases are then prosecuted. The retail crime action plan that I set out a few moments ago will increase the number of prosecutions of those who assault retail workers, as well as of those who steal from retail stores. I am confident that that will be the result of that action plan.
One or two hon. Members mentioned the £200 threshold. I want to make sure that everyone is clear about that. A change to the law in 2014 made the theft of goods valued at under £200 triable summarily only, which means triable just in the magistrates court. To be clear, it is still a criminal offence, it can still and should be prosecuted, and the maximum sentence is six months’ imprisonment, which is the maximum that a magistrate these days can impose. Stealing more than £200-worth of goods is triable either way, meaning that it can be heard in a Crown court. The maximum sentence upon conviction in the Crown court for that offence, of theft, is seven years. So, to be clear, stealing goods to the value of less than £200 is criminal; it can and should be prosecuted; and it is punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment.
I hope it is clear from my remarks that we are taking this issue extremely seriously. The increase in shoplifting in the past year or two in this country, as well as in the US, France and Germany, is of concern, which is why we are taking the action that I set out. We need a zero-tolerance approach, because if we do not have one, the problem just escalates. We have seen in some American cities, such as San Francisco, the situation getting completely out of control. Looting has become commonplace in San Francisco and elsewhere, and we cannot allow that to happen in the UK. That is why we have developed our plan, and why I have asked the police to take a zero-tolerance approach. I am sure that all of us, Members of Parliament and PCCs up and down the country, will hold the police to account to deliver the plan.
Chris Philp
I was about to sit down, but as the hon. Lady secured the debate, it would be extremely discourteous not to give way.
Liz Twist
I thank the Minister. Will he address the issue that I raised about the resourcing of the police? In my local Northumbria police area, we are still 400 police officers down. That is irrespective of whatever the picture is nationally, and the situation is the same across the north-east. Clearly, that affects the response of the police. What can he say about that? Can he commit to increasing the numbers in Northumbria?
Chris Philp
I can confirm that across England and Wales as a whole, as I think the hon. Lady knows, we have 149,566 police officers; that is as of 31 March this year. The number is higher than it has ever been in history and it is about 3,500 higher than the previous peak in March 2010, so there is a record number nationally. As for each individual force area, the choices made by individual PCCs—
Chris Philp
I am going to conclude, because I do not want to overburden the Chamber and I wish to finish answering the point. The numbers in individual force areas reflect choices made by individual PCCs over time, for example, about the precept and about the balance between officer numbers, police stations and so on. What we have done in government is make sure that there are record numbers nationally. We have also put more money into policing, so this year PCCs had £550 million more available to them than last year. In addition, we fully funded the 7% pay rise between 2.5% and 7%, which this year entailed an extra £330 million.
Those resources are going in. In addition, from next April we are funding—in every one of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales, including the hon. Lady’s—specially funded antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols. I would expect them mainly to concentrate on town centres and high streets, where shoplifting may also occur. Where we have piloted those in the past four or five months, including in Blackpool, parts of Staffordshire and parts of Essex, we have seen reductions of 20% or 30% in antisocial behaviour and other forms of criminality. We will therefore fund each force, in addition to its regular funding settlement, to have those hotspot patrols, which should deliver something like 30,000 hours of specialist patrolling in each force area each year from April. I think that that will make a real difference.
Liz Twist
With regard to the Minister’s explanation of the differences and the choices that local police forces have made, I am sure he will know that the impact of increasing the precept and the value of housing in our local communities mean that authorities such as mine suffer disproportionately because of the way the precept is worked out. Choices there may be, but they are choices within the funding envelope.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Lady for her final intervention. The police funding formula, which is rather old now, accounts for the council tax base as well as population, crime levels and so forth, but it needs reviewing and updating. As I said, when we lay out the police funding settlement for next year, which we intend to do this side of Christmas, I hope that police forces up and down the country, including in her area, will see that they will get a material resource uplift next year, as well as the special funding I mentioned for hotspot patrolling that has made a huge and visible difference in the areas in which it has been trialled.
This is a serious issue and the Government take it seriously. We have a plan, we have agreed it with policing, and we will now get on and deliver that plan operationally.
Town Centre Safety
Chris Philp Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Alex Davies-Jones
I welcome the intervention, and I know that stop and search has an appropriate place, particularly in targeting knife crime and offensive weapons. It can be an appropriate tool if used appropriately, with the police obviously having the appropriate training and support to do so. It cannot be a blanket policy to target everybody in our town centres; it has to be used appropriately, proportionately and effectively if it is to be used at all. It can be used as an appropriate tool and I recognise that it has a place, but there are other schemes and, as I have said, crime prevention has been overlooked far too much by this Government. There are many schemes to deal with that, and I will be outlining our plan.
I will welcome an intervention by the Minister if he wants to reach out to me, but I offer him an olive branch. I invite him to come and spend the day with me in Pontypridd, because I am confident that it will take him all of 10 minutes to understand the real issues that we are discussing.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
And in Croydon South?
Alex Davies-Jones
Yes, happily.
In fact, my community, along with many others across the country, recently came together to commemorate White Ribbon Day, which is always a poignant moment to reflect on the huge battle we continue to face as we seek to end male violence against women and girls for good. One of the most shameful consequences of the last 13 years is the systemic failure to tackle violence against women and girls, which is having serious consequences. I rarely have to state the obvious, but sometimes clarity is overlooked in this place. I genuinely do not know whether men can truly understand the fear and the constant, often underlying concern that women feel when out on our streets and in our town centres. Our safety is not always at the forefront of our minds, but let it be known that it is always present in them. I know that women, across ages and across the political divide, know that feeling of asking a friend to take a longer and safer route home or to message when they are back. We have all become used to exhibiting such behaviour as second nature, but how on earth have we got to a point where women and girls cannot reliably feel safe when simply walking through our town centres?
Something commonly overlooked is the huge impact that the situation is having on older people, who may be equally vulnerable and the targets of crime. I have heard from a number of older residents—male and female—in my own area, who no longer feel safe visiting Pontypridd on market day. What used to be a bustling day for local businesses on the high street is now often a busy day for my local police force, who are having to do more and more with less and less. That is the simple reality of the situation: this Tory Government have sat by and made cuts to policing that are having a huge impact. Visible policing on our streets remains at record lows, and often police officers have to travel across county lines, which means the connections and knowledge of a local area are sadly lost.
I am lucky in south Wales to have the support of a fantastic, hardworking and award-winning set of police community support officers covering our town centre, including Constable Liam Noyce, Hannah Lowe, Christopher Jones, Lisa Banfield, and Shanie Ross. Sadly, I know that many other areas are not as fortunate. The Government’s lack of leadership means that they have failed to ensure that professional standards in policing are high enough. Recent events and appalling evidence of misconduct have also shown us the extent to which trust in policing can be shattered, and without that trust, policing by consent sadly becomes impossible.
Patterns of crime and vulnerability are changing, but neither the police nor the criminal justice system has kept up. Labour can, and will, do better. As a priority, a Labour Government will crack down on serious violent crime by preventing young people from getting drawn into crime and criminal gangs in the first place. We recognise that there are series issues with knife crime, which is destroying young lives, devastating families and undermining our communities.
To tackle that we need a serious programme of police reform and crime prevention. Government Departments must work together, and work with the Home Office, to intervene where young people are at risk and act quickly when knife crime incidents are recorded. At the moment police forces and local authorities are lacking in direction, but a Labour Government will take action at the root.
Whether that is by tackling websites that promote and sell machetes and dangerous knives, or taking action to stop vulnerable young people being drawn into crime and gangs by putting access to mental health support workers into every school, it is the Labour party that takes safety seriously.
It is utterly wrong that this Government have abandoned their basic duty to keep people safe on our streets and online. The numbers speak for themselves. Most of all, after 13 years of Tory Government, more than 90% of crimes are going unsolved. That means that criminals are less than half as likely to be caught now than when Labour was last in government. The Conservatives’ legacy on crime and justice is one of damaging decline and collapsing confidence, and victims and communities are paying the price. I echo the pleas of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who asked the Minister to do better. If he cannot commit to getting the basics right on personal safety, people across the country will sadly continue to suffer. Only Labour has a solid plan for change, and never, ever, has the need been stronger.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
I thank both shadow Ministers for the opportunity to debate this important topic, and it is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). We worked together when we were both on the Culture, Media and Sport Front Benches. I am not sure whether she is following me or vice-versa, but it is a pleasure to continue to work with her.
I agree that the retail community, which serves this country so well, is the lifeblood of our town centres, and it breathes life into the heart of our communities. My very first job was working in a shop, in Sainsbury’s in south London, not far from my current constituency. I was stacking shelves among other things, so I have had direct experience of working on the frontline of retail, as I am sure other hon. Members have had as well.
Before I talk a little about shoplifting and antisocial behaviour—as a number of Members from across the House have said, more needs to be done there—I want to talk about the facts on crime and policing as a whole. We have heard many Opposition Members trying to paint a sort of dystopian, almost Dickensian picture as part of their pre-election campaigning—they have referred repeatedly to an election, and make no bones about it: this is a piece of electioneering. Their dystopian anecdotes do not bear scrutiny when measured against the facts. We owe it to this House and the public to be clear about the facts.
Let me start with the crime statistics. The Office for National Statistics says that the only reliable source of crime data is the crime survey of England and Wales. In the past year, all crime as measured by the crime survey has fallen by 10%. Since 2010, when this Government came into office, crime has fallen by 56% on a like-for-like basis, meaning that crime under the last Labour Government was around double the level it is today.
Looking at some of the more serious crime types individually, here are the falls we have seen since 2010: criminal damage is down by 73%, domestic burglary is down by 47%, theft from the person is down by 44%, vehicle theft is down by 39%, violence is down by 52% and total theft is down by 47%. Those are the facts, those are the figures and they are published by the independent Office for National Statistics. [Interruption.] The figures for the last year include fraud and are down by 10%.
Let me talk for a moment about police numbers. Some Opposition Members referred to the reduction in police numbers that occurred in the years following 2010, before I was even a Member of Parliament. Let us remember why there was financial pressure in those years. That was because, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, helpfully said, there was no money left. The economic devastation left by the last Labour Government led to difficult choices. In the past three years, we have hired 21,000 more police officers.
Chris Philp
I will give way in a moment. We now have 149,556 police officers employed in England and Wales. That is more than we have ever had at any time in this country’s history, including 2010. Labour has chosen to look today at neighbourhood policing, which is a subset of local policing. When we look at all local policing, which includes several different subcategories, the number has gone up from 61,000 to 67,000. That includes a number of categories, not just neighbourhood and response.
Chris Philp
I will give way first to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and then to my hon. Friend.
Jess Phillips
I just wonder, as the Minister is doing such enthusiastic cheerleading for his Government, whether he could remind me who the biggest cheerleader was for the mini-Budget.
Chris Philp
I am not sure what that has to do with the devastation that the last Labour Government wreaked on the economy, with the biggest recession for a generation and unemployment at twice the level it is today. I am surprised that the hon. Member wants to talk about the last Labour Government’s appalling economic record.
Let me return to crime and policing, or you will tick me off for being out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I acknowledged a moment ago that there are some areas where we need to do better, and shoplifting and antisocial behaviour are two of those, as Members on both sides of the House have said.
Let me start with shoplifting. Across the western world, including in the US, Germany and France, in the past year or two we have seen a considerable increase in shoplifting, and the same has happened in the United Kingdom. While the 29% increase in prosecutions for shoplifting in the past year is welcome, we clearly need to do more. That is why the Government set out a retail crime action plan to do more in this area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) said in his excellent speech. That was published just a few weeks ago. It includes a commitment by the police to attend shoplifting incidents where that is necessary to secure evidence, where there has been an assault, or where a suspect has been detained, for example, by store security staff.
It is not acceptable, frankly, that the Co-op has discovered that in about three quarters of cases where its staff have detained an offender, the police did not attend. I have said directly to the police that that is not acceptable, and they have responded with the commitment they have made in the recent action plan. I expect better, and the police have committed to delivering better.
Chris Philp
I promised to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, but I will then give way to the hon. Member.
Tom Randall
I am old enough to remember the last Labour Government. They went into the 2010 election promising a £1 billion cut to the Home Office budget, which I am sure would have had an effect on police numbers. Whether it was the coalition Government cleaning up Labour’s mess or the Labour Government cleaning up their own mess, someone would have had to make the difficult financial decisions in 2010 that my right hon. Friend the Minister outlined.
Jim McMahon
If we accept that there was nothing the Government could do about the near quarter of a million cases—the Minister has used the Co-operative Group’s figure himself—where a police officer did not turn up when somebody had been apprehended, is he now saying that, from today, a police officer will turn up to every single call from a Co-op store?
Chris Philp
Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on this issue, has committed in the retail crime action plan, which I urge the hon. Member to read, that where an offender has been detained, the police will prioritise attendance. I expect all of us in Parliament, and police and crime commissioners, to hold the police to account in delivering that commitment. The police have also committed to identify and target prolific offenders, and to always follow reasonable lines of inquiry in relation to all crimes, not just shoplifting. That includes, for example, always retrieving CCTV or mobile phone footage and running it through the police national database to seek a facial recognition match to identify offenders.
The technology has improved enormously, even in the last six to 12 months. The artificial intelligence that drives it means that images that appear to be blurred or partially obscured, which a year or two ago could not be matched, now can be matched. Always running images from Ring doorbells, mobile phone pictures, dashcam footage and CCTV footage through the police national database will lead to very many more offenders—shoplifters, but also others—being caught. I have asked all 43 police forces across England and Wales to double the use of retrospective facial recognition in the coming year, to make sure that more offenders are caught.
Time is pressing, so let me move on to antisocial behaviour, which a number of Members on both sides of the House rightly identified as a challenge in town centres. My hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) both made, in their very different ways, powerful speeches on this topic, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) and others on both sides. Antisocial behaviour is a scourge. It leaves people feeling uneasy when they visit their town centres, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich that we need a zero-tolerance approach.
In the last five or six months, we have trialled antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols in a number of police force areas, and they have been extremely successful. In the areas where they have been run—they have been fully funded with extra money, by the way—they have reduced antisocial behaviour by something like 20% to 30%. Staffordshire is one of the counties that has been trialling the patrols, along with Lancashire and Essex. Because the approach has been so successful, we will roll it out across the whole country from April next year. It will be fully funded and that will pay for something like 30,000 hours a year of hotspot patrolling in each police force area, to address the issue of people feeling unsafe or uneasy in town centres. My hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich, for Stoke-on-Trent North and for Stoke-on-Trent South mentioned that in their excellent speeches. It is coming soon; in fact, it is coming as soon as April.
I have set out the actions being taken on retail crime and on ASB, and I have set out the fact that crime is falling and that we have record police numbers, so let me come to the electioneering we heard from the Opposition. The hon. Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) called for an election in what was an extraordinary display of overconfidence, so let us have a look at what Labour delivers in government.
The last Labour Government delivered fewer police officers than we now have. They delivered double the levels of crime that we now have. In London, where there is a Labour police and crime commissioner, Sadiq Khan failed to recruit 1,089 officers, despite being given money by the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) pointed out. He could have recruited them—the money was there—but he failed to do so. Knife crime under Sadiq Khan has gone up, and he was told off by the Office for National Statistics for misleading the public—let us be generous and say that it was unintentional—by claiming that knife crime had fallen on his watch. In the west midlands, where there is a Labour police and crime commissioner, they are looking at closing police stations.
Finally, let us look at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Just a year ago, the Labour party voted against that Bill. Labour Members voted against increasing the sentences for people assaulting emergency workers. They voted against making assaulting a shop worker a statutory aggravating factor. They voted against measures to clamp down on disruptive protests. They voted against making whole-life orders for premeditated child murder mandatory. In fact, in the Bill Committee Labour even voted against keeping rapists in prison for longer, having introduced release at the halfway point in 2003.
We have seen Labour’s record in government and its record in London and the west midlands, and we have seen Labour Members voting against strong legislative measures. The Government have delivered record police numbers and falling crime. We have got a plan on antisocial behaviour and on shoplifting. I commend that to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House condemns the Government’s failure to tackle town centre crime; is concerned that shoplifting has reached record levels, with a 25% rise over the past year and 1,000 offences per day, while the detection rate for shoplifters has fallen; believes that immediate action must be taken to stop the increasing number of unacceptable incidents of violence and abuse faced by shop workers; notes that the number of neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers has been reduced by 10,000 since 2015; and calls on the Government to back Labour’s community policing guarantee, which includes scrapping the £200 limit on crown court prosecutions for shoplifting in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, creating a new specific offence of violence against shop workers, rolling out town centre policing plans and putting 13,000 extra police and community support officers back in town centres to crack down on antisocial behaviour.