Respect Orders and Anti-social Behaviour
Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for those points. These issues are consistently under examination by the Home Office. Going back to the potential legislation and the remit of the Statement, the two big issues in the Statement show that there is a real focus on shop theft, from a very low level through to a very high level. That should be put into policing plans on shop theft as a matter of urgency, with changes to the law made accordingly to reflect that.
On protection for shop workers, they are doing a job and should not be attacked in the course of their work for upholding legislation on sales or for resisting theft. I note the abuse they sometimes get, particularly from people who are undertaking anti-social behaviour in a more formal way. I declare an interest as a member of the shop workers union. That is the thrust of the two bits of legislation that are linked in the Statement, and I hope that will be welcomed by this House in due course.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I very much welcome the return of genuine neighbourhood policing, which is so necessary, particularly on our housing estates. But, as the noble the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, it is about the numbers of police officers. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that the status of neighbourhood policing is raised, not among the public—they understand it—but within the police force itself, so that people who are serving the local community as local neighbourhood police are seen as just as important and just as good at tackling crime as those in other parts of the Metropolitan Police and police forces in the United Kingdom?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is important that people know who their police officers are, see them visibly and have the trust and confidence to give them information that might help reduce anti-social behaviour or other criminal activity. It is important that police engage with the community in a way that gives them confidence for that information to come forward and that, as they have done in the past, at a local level police use their antennae to pick up on information that needs to be addressed by the wider policing family in tackling criminal activity.
Illegal Migrant Returns Agreements
Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord will be aware that the Government intend to look at a whole range of data. One of the reasons we have deported more than 2,500 people forcibly, including 1,500-plus people who are foreign national offenders, is that we recognise that when people have completed their sentence, there is the right to remove them if the Government wish to remove them. We get notification when foreign national offenders complete their sentences, and we will certainly examine that issue. Perhaps the noble Lord could ask his own Front Bench why there were 100,000 such foreign offences last year alone.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
Is the Minister aware that in the past few weeks the police in the Republic of Ireland have been stopping buses coming over from Northern Ireland, checking identity and immigration status and sending people back to Northern Ireland? Has he had any discussions with the Irish Government on this, and is it affecting in any way the common travel area?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I take what the noble Baroness has said at face value. I have not had any exposure to that issue—it has not come across my desk—but I will take it away and reflect on it. I assure her that there is co-operation between the Irish authorities and the United Kingdom authorities—and, indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly—on all matters relating to the common travel agreement area.
Illegal Migrants
Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Baroness Hoey(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Lord. I ask the Minister, in all seriousness, whether anybody in the Government has talked to the French authorities about the conditions that many of those migrants are living in just across the sea. Anyone in this House would realise that, if they are living in those kinds of conditions and they know what is going to happen in terms of their living conditions if they manage to get to the United Kingdom, that is a huge pull factor. Surely the French Government have to take into consideration the human rights of those migrants, as we do in this country.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I first visited camps in Calais when I was shadow Immigration Minister in November 2014. The route then was via lorries and Eurostar trains, rather than small boats. The conditions were terrible then and they are terrible now. We need discussions with our colleagues in France. There is no current bilateral agreement with France on this issue following the decisions of Brexit, but we are engaged. The noble Baroness will know that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has met the French authorities, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has the G7 nations. We are pledged to work to end this crisis, and we will.