Oral Answers to Questions

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. He will, of course, recall that elements of the compliant environment were introduced under the last Labour Government, including the controls introduced in 1999 on temporary and illegal migrant access to benefits and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which introduced controls on local authority social care.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important question about the Windrush compensation scheme, and it is important that we have the scheme up and running and are receiving applications. We have, of course, undertaken to provide regular updates to the Home Affairs Committee, which will provide exactly the information that the hon. Gentleman seeks.

Of course, it is a requirement under legislation that the compensation scheme be for a period of two years, but we are looking closely at that. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that should there be a requirement to extend it, which would undoubtedly need primary legislation, we would be happy to consider that.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

Diverting young people away from crime is at the heart of our approach to tackling serious violence. Factors such as domestic abuse, truancy and substance abuse can make a young person more vulnerable to becoming a victim or perpetrator of serious violence. That is why, for example, we are investing £220 million in early intervention schemes—a record amount.

[Giles Watling]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. We all know that instances of violent crime in urban centres such as London get the most media attention, but sadly we are also seeing our share of violent crime in my coastal constituency. We had one robbery at knifepoint and one serious assault in the same area of the town in the past week. Following a campaign that I led in Essex, we have seen 12 more officers on the streets of Clacton. They work so hard, but what more can be done to prevent young people in areas such as my constituency from turning towards violent crime?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend has led an excellent local campaign and I commend him for it. As he will know, Essex police has received £1.7 million from the £100 million extra funding to tackle serious violence that was recently announced. In addition, his local police and crime commissioner has been provisionally allocated a further £1.16 million for a violence reduction unit. He may also welcome the £660,000 allocated to Essex from the early intervention youth fund.

Elder Abuse

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for my first Adjournment debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you were for my maiden speech. Long may this tradition continue.

I want to raise the increasingly important issue of elder abuse, a terrible and perhaps poorly understood crime. At its heart is the trust that an older person may rightly expect to establish with another person for reasons of care, but sadly that trust is frequently violated, leading to physical, financial, psychological and even sexual abuse and to some deeply troubling outcomes for victims.

I want to express my disappointment that, to my mind at least, the issue is too often overlooked at national level. Here in Parliament there have been only a handful of mentions of elder abuse in recent years, even though it is a real and growing problem that can occur in an institutional care setting or a private home. Despite elder abuse being such a widespread concern, it does not dominate our discourse in the way that such a despicable act should. That is disappointing, and perhaps some newspapers are right when they accuse us here in Parliament of marginalising a forgotten generation.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I am sure he is aware as I am that families have often had to hide cameras in care homes to film the abuse going on there—we have seen documentaries about that. I agree with him that something should be done about the problem, because elderly people have made a major contribution to this country. Does he agree that there should be better training and better pay for carers, and that the law should be tightened up?

[Giles Watling]

I agree that there should be financial support, and I also agree about CCTV—I shall come on to those points a little later.

We clearly have a lot to make up for in Parliament, and I hope that today’s debate will prompt some constructive action and, at the very least, go some way towards raising awareness at national level.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need to raise the issue. I, too, have had constituents who have experienced elder abuse. As people grow older they become more isolated, so the risk of abuse increases. Does he agree that safeguarding adults boards should have a specific focus on older people, and should assess the risk to them and come up with prevention plans?

[Giles Watling]

I could not agree more. Those boards should have a key role in ensuring that our older people are safe and secure—that is what this is all about.

I am the MP for a constituency where more than 32% of residents are aged over 65—including me, incidentally. That is the highest percentage of any constituency in the country, so it is hardly surprising that I am leading this debate.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend kindly for giving way; he is being very generous. He is portraying this as a British problem, but does he agree that it is not just a British problem? The World Health Organisation has published material that shows that this is happening all around the world. It is a generational problem that we have to deal with, as he rightly points out.

[Giles Watling]

I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point that this happens all over the world, but we must clean up our own act first and make sure that we are far ahead of the game, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Where we lead, others follow.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Each of us in the House tonight has experience of this issue from our constituencies and it is very important. We are absolutely disgusted by the abuse of elderly people in homes across the UK. Is he aware of the recent poll by the charity Action on Elder Abuse, which found that nearly one in 10 older people had experienced serious physical, mental or financial abuse in homes? That would indicate that 23,000 older people have been affected in Northern Ireland and nearly 1 million across the UK. Does he agree that one way of tackling this is to ensure that adequate safeguarding is in place, for example, in care homes, to ensure that older people do not suffer at the hands of those who are there to care for and not abuse them?

[Giles Watling]

I could not agree more, and I have seen those statistics. We have to remember that this happens not only in care homes, but in private homes where carers come to look after elderly people.

I must admit that since my election last year, elder abuse has not been as prominent in my mind as perhaps it should have been. In fact, it was a meeting with some of our local pensioners who formed the very good group TenPAG—the Tendring Pensioners’ Action Group—in August this year that made me fully appreciate the need to tackle this problem. Having gone away from that meeting and investigated the matter further, I was deeply disturbed by what I found. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the statistics are truly shocking. There are 1 million victims of elder abuse every year in the UK, but here is another statistic: only 0.3% of the reported incidents result in a successful criminal conviction. That is not good enough. Convicted abusers often escape with flimsy sentences and trivial fines.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and being generous with his time, which I appreciate is limited. I have also had experience of constituents raising such matters, and particularly financial abuse of the elderly. To declare an interest, I also used to prosecute for Oxfordshire trading standards and came across many people who had been abused in that sense.

There is one category that my hon. Friend has not mentioned: sometimes in their own homes, people can be befriended by strangers for the precise purpose of exploiting and abusing them. Does he condemn that as much as I do—I am sure he does—and will he commend and encourage the volunteer support groups who do so much to ensure that people are not isolated and that such problems are uncovered?

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[Giles Watling]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not agree more that elder abuse in people’s homes is, in some way, even more chilling, and I will come to that shortly.

This is not just an appalling failure of justice; the lax approach to punishment fails to deter would-be abusers, who see older people as a soft target, as my hon. Friend pointed out. We must do more to protect older people. We would not fail the victims of child, domestic or sexual abuse in this way, so why are we seemingly happy to fail the victims of elder abuse? Why are we happy for there to be a lower conviction rate for the abuse of older people than for racially motivated crimes, homophobic or transphobic crimes, domestic abuse and disability hate crime? It is simply unacceptable, and I propose that we put elder abuse in its own category in line with these other appalling crimes to improve the justice outcome for victims.

As we have said, elder abuse can take place in a care setting or in a private home, and chillingly the abuser is often well known to the person being abused. They may be a partner, a child or relative, a friend or neighbour, a care worker, a health or social worker or another professional. Older people may even be abused by the person who cares for them—that sounds like an oxymoron, but there it is—and this abuse is potentially very easy to carry out. I remember being put in charge of my late mother’s affairs following the death of my father. I was astonished at the sweeping powers that the enduring power of attorney gave me—powers that could so easily be abused. Fortunately, my mother had a devoted son who saw her live out her days in comfort and security, but sadly that is not always the case, and when that trust is abused the penalties should be severe.

Abuse can be perpetrated anywhere and by anyone, and that has led to some truly awful situations. In Sussex recently, £10 million was stolen from vulnerable fraud victims in just one year. Some 89% of the victims were aged over 60 and 63% were living alone. In Cheshire, as we all may recall, care home workers were filmed abusing an elderly, blind dementia victim. Those abusers were spared jail, despite the public outcry. In Cambridgeshire, a pensioner aged 105 was assaulted—the oldest known victim of elder abuse so far. These incidents, all of which have taken place within the last 18 months, should never have occurred, and I feel for those people who have had to live through these harrowing experiences in what are supposed to be the golden years of their lives. These are people who have done so much to make our country what it is today.

I wish it were not so, but in Clacton we are not immune to these crimes either. In 2016, a resident in my constituency was defrauded out of £57,000 by his carer, who was sentenced to just 15 months in prison, and in 2013, 16 people were arrested for financially abusing 39 people. All the victims were from the Clacton area and were aged between 65 and 99. I have no doubt that many colleagues will have similar stories in their own constituencies.

I also have no doubt that colleagues will have heard about abusive situations in care homes. Unfortunately, these incidents are becoming more common. In fact, researchers at University College London found that 99% of carers across 92 care homes had witnessed or taken part in troubling behaviour. That is an appalling statistic. It is absolutely shocking and a good enough reason, I think, to install CCTV cameras in communal areas. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) is pushing for that outcome, and I give him my full support.

We would be naive to think, however, that elder abuse only occurs in the care home. As we have said, it can be just as common when care is taking place in the home, where standards can slip, corners can be cut and monitoring can become a side issue, thanks to pressures that mean keeping the system going becomes more important than safeguarding. Domiciliary care, or care in the home, is our most common and important form of care, and we need urgently to address long-term social care funding issues in this sector before we see quality suffer.

One way to do that is to secure the future of the adult social care precept, which has been temporarily lifted over the past three years to allow councils to raise additional funds. In my view, that is a good thing. I hope, then, to see the adult social care precept become a permanent resource for local councils, not just to give a funding boost, but to provide a clear long-term funding model outside of general council tax. However, although I am pleased that the Government have also announced a £240 million increase in this sector, I would also point out that it is not just about money.

To make that point further, I should mentioned Guide at Broomfield, a nursing home in Braintree. It decided to close earlier this year and attributed that closure to financial difficulty. If one consults the Care Quality Commission report, however, one will see that the home’s basic failings had nothing to do with funding. Residents were being left in soiled clothing, and that is a basic standard failing, not a financial one. We could compare that with Beaumont House in Walton-on-the-Naze, in my constituency, which I had the pleasure of visiting recently. It is like a five-star hotel, with all the comforts of a house, where guests are treated like human beings, not just clients. It is not a bad place. I thought I would go there once the good people of Clacton were done with me.

I have no doubt that funding is important, but no amount of money will make up for poor standards, and if we are really to really elder abuse, we need to talk about, and rigorously maintain, standards within the adult social care sector. I was interested to read the suggestion from Age UK about how national guidance should be developed on how conversations about abuse can be started and effectively supported by family members, professionals and the older people themselves. I would certainly back this proposal, and I hope the Minister will meet with Age UK to discuss it. I would also like a statutory definition of a crime against an older person and specific elder-protecting legislation to be introduced, as neither currently exists.

What I really want, however, is to see elder abuse become an aggravated offence, although in calling for that change I recognise the steps that the Government have taken to tackle it. For instance, in 2015 domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour became specific offences under the Serious Crime Act. In the same year, a wilful neglect offence was introduced under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act, so there is now criminal liability when a person has been placed under the care of a medical professional. According to the Government’s impact assessment, the new offence was designed to

“ensure that those responsible for the worst failures in care can be held accountable”,

and to

“act as a deterrent, moderating the conduct of individuals who might otherwise be disposed to behave in ways that would constitute an offence.”

Those are laudable aims, but that has not happened. Perpetrators are not being held to account with firm punishments, and the new offence has failed to prevent any further abuses in care. The example from Cheshire that I gave earlier, and the research carried out by UCL, both took place after its introduction. What is more, the new wilful neglect offence, by its very nature, fails to prevent the abuse of older people who are living in their own homes outside a traditional care setting. They are the forgotten victims of elder abuse, and we must not forget them as we seek to address this issue. To protect those who are still living in their own homes, as well as older people in care who may be vulnerable, we must introduce a new offence that punishes elder abuse properly, regardless of its location. Making elder abuse an aggravated offence will do that, which means that there will be harsher sentences for perpetrators.

A mandatory sentencing uplift is already in place for hate crimes motivated by prejudice based on someone’s race, sexual orientation, religion, or disability. I ask, quite simply, why not age? An anomaly in the law needs to be addressed, and that is a change that we can deliver now. As part of the Government’s efforts to update the hate crime action plan, the Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of hate crime legislation, and I am sending it a letter today. The Government have committed themselves to acting on the commission’s specific proposals, and during the review it will consider whether to make elder abuse an aggravated offence. I hope that it, and the Government, will agree with me that this change is needed now.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more. The police have been cut to a level at which they are unable to prevent and respond to crime, and the demand on them is completely unprecedented, not only from new crimes, but as a result of other services being cut.

The police are now unable to respond to the basic task that we ask of them and that the Prime Minister asked them to do at the Police Federation conference eight years ago, which is to prevent and respond to crime—nothing more, nothing less. Police chiefs have warned the Government about the issue time and again. They have warned that local policing is under such strain that the legitimacy of policing is at risk, as the relationship with communities is fading to a point at which prevention, early intervention and core engagement are ineffective. This is a stark warning. Never before have police chiefs, usually incredibly reticent to enter political debate, spoken out so plainly about the risks facing public safety. Only yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, told the Home Affairs Committee that it would be “naive” to dissociate police cuts from rising levels of crime.

While the lack of resources has hampered the police, there is no doubt that crime itself, and the demand on rural police forces, is changing. County lines is a clear and growing threat for rural forces. It has been partly responsible for a serious increase in violent crime in areas that do not traditionally suffer from it. County lines dealers from the cities are exploiting hidden poverty and a cohort of vulnerable youngsters in rural areas. With the numbers of looked-after children and homeless children rising, this is of significant concern. The exploitation of young and vulnerable persons is a common feature in the facilitation of county lines drugs supply, whether for the storage or supply of drugs, the movement of cash, or to secure the use of dwellings held by vulnerable people—commonly referred to as cuckooing.

As the Home Office’s own analysis of the rise in serious violence states, childhood risk factors, including economic stress, mean that interventions with vulnerable young people such as those excluded from school and looked-after children would be successful in reducing violence and drug demand. The Government are aware of this, but so far their response has been muted, and their continued refusal to fund the police properly is felt across the country.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that it is our job as constituency MPs to stay in touch with our local police forces and to address their concerns? That is what I did, and that is how I managed to raise the precept in our local area and increase the police force there.

[Louise Haigh]

Raising the precept in the way that the Government have done is a fundamentally unfair way to fund police forces across this country. [Interruption.] I am sorry—I do not know which police force area the hon. Gentleman represents, but I am almost positive that raising the precept by 2% will result in significantly more in his force area than in my area of South Yorkshire, or in Northumbria, Cleveland, or many metropolitan areas that have significant demand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I will move on to in due course. The shadow Minister mentioned the impact of county line criminality on rural areas, and I am pleased she did so, because we are both determined to tackle it. That is precisely why the Government have announced, through the serious violence strategy, £3.5 million of funding to bring about a national co-ordination centre to share intelligence and expertise among police forces, particularly in those areas whose experience of gangs is perhaps not to the same extent as that in urban areas, so that they learn not from scratch but from colleagues elsewhere in the country.

The theft of farm equipment can have a devastating impact on farmers. I had the pleasure recently of driving a tractor worth £350,000 in my constituency. I was slightly surprised when the farmer allowed me to reverse it, but it remains intact. What if that equipment is stolen? That small business person has made an enormous investment and may well have taken out loans to pay it off. That theft would be a crime committed against them, their family, their business and their local community. Rural constabularies are aware of such issues.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley raised the issue of police funding. We understand the wish that rural communities are not disadvantaged in the delivery or quality of public services to tackle crime. The Government are committed to providing police forces in England and Wales with the resources they need to do their crucial work. I must, however, set the issue in context. The hon. Lady knows that I only do this when she talks at length about funding. The reason the Government had to make such tough spending decisions after the 2010 election was the economic legacy of the previous Labour Government and the global financial crisis. If we are going to have a good, productive debate, we must remember the historical context in which we were operating.

We have absolutely recognised the resources the police need. That is precisely why in 2015 the then Home Secretary insisted in the spending review that the Government protected overall police funding in real terms, and we have done so since. We have also increased our investment to support police transformation and technology, so that our police can respond to the changing nature of crime.

[Giles Watling]

Will my hon. Friend celebrate the fact that we have succeeded in getting thousands of police out from doing useless paperwork in back offices and back on the frontline of policing?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. One of the challenges to the police over the past few years has been to get warranted officers, who hold positions of responsibility after we have given them their warrant and training, to use their powers and specialist skills in accordance with their warrant. I am delighted that the figures show that constabularies across the country have made extraordinary improvements in using warranted officers in frontline policing. That means more officers on the beat or investigating crime, doing the job they signed up to do, rather than sitting in human resources departments and so on.

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[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the very thoughtful speech of the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and the other very thoughtful speeches in this debate. I very much welcome the fact that our Opposition Front-Bench team has chosen to hold this debate on rural crime and public services. Those of us who represent rural constituencies welcome the fact that many people view our communities in very glowing terms. We all know about the green and pleasant land, the apple tree in Linden Lea and so on, and our communities are all of those things—plus we also have a good few mountains in North Wales for good measure—but, like every other community, they have problems. They also have problems that are unique because of their rurality.

I was pleased to hear the emphasis in this debate on criminality pure and simple when it comes to animal abuse. These cases are truly horrific—whether it is hare coursing or badger baiting. Let us be absolutely clear on this: this is not some gentle historical relic of the past of some rural sport and the like; it is criminal behaviour pure and simple. The people who perpetuate these evil practices deserve to have the strong arm of the law used against them.

[Giles Watling]

Would the hon. Lady not include in that abandoning horses in fields to starve? That happens in my area. It is not only criminality, but sheer ignorance as well.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman; it is animal abuse, it is cruelty and it needs to be stamped out. The punishment needs to fit the crime in those areas.

A couple of years ago I held an Adjournment debate in this House on rural crime, in which I highlighted the work of a local initiative—a rural crime mapping scheme—in the wards of Esclusham and Ponciau in my own constituency. The Minister then praised the local endeavour in our area, as well as the work of Farm Watch, the intriguingly named OWL—Online Watch Link—and of course the excellent work of the rural crime team of North Wales police, to which I also pay tribute today.

Many Members have spoken about the impact of police cuts. I must report on the situation in north Wales, using January Home Office figures. Five years ago, North Wales police employed 160 officers for neighbourhood policing and 254 police community support officers. Last year that figure fell to 90 police officers and just 148 police community support officers. That is a worry. Now, we know that there is technology and we welcome new technology—none of us is advocating the return to a sort of era of “Dixon of Dock Green”—but we do recognise that neighbourhood policing is vital if we are serious about tackling crime in our rural communities.

There are many aspects to rural crime, but today I will stick to just one: the issue of speeding on our rural roads, which I asked the Minister about earlier. Many of us are very concerned about the extent of speeding now. We need a major clampdown on speeding and, yes, a justice system that is prepared to be serious in its use of driving bans—something that is not happening to the right degree today.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

I represent a constituency in north Wales, which has a number of urban areas but is also significantly rural, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said. We have something like 700,000 people in north Wales, spread over 6,000-plus sq km. It is a drive of 82 miles from one end of north Wales to the other, and it would take me 20 miles by 10 miles to cover my constituency. It is a big rural area represented by Members of Parliament in the House today. We have six counties in the North Wales police force area, and we have two languages—Welsh and English—because of the area’s history.

We have an influx of tourists each year, which doubles the population in the key summer months. That brings its own challenges, as my hon. Friend said, such as increased traffic problems, more deaths on roads and an increase in the number of events that need policing. We have individuals who occasionally drink too much on holiday and cause difficulties, and we have increased crime in the summer months. Those challenges are by no means and by no stretch of the imagination the ones facing central London or the inner cities, but they are interesting challenges that need to be addressed by the Government as part of the rural crime debate. We border the two metropolitan areas of Merseyside and Manchester, which have significant crime challenges, such as the promotion of drug and other criminal activity, which are very often transferred to areas of north Wales. We have to be aware of all those issues.

I approach this debate in the light of those challenges for north Wales. We are an area of moderate or reasonably low crime, but I bring to the House the fact that in the past 12 to 15 months crime has significantly increased. I listened with some interest to Members who have seen crime fall in their area. We must remember that this is against a backdrop of having 20,000 fewer officers across the whole of the United Kingdom since I had the honour of being the police Minister in the Home Office. There has been a 6% drop in police numbers—100 fewer officers—in my North Wales police force area, but over the past 18 months there has been a 13% increase in recorded crime in north Wales. The number of murders is at a seven-year high. Shop theft has risen, and it is estimated that its cost is over £128,000 a year in my constituency. Theft from buildings and properties has risen by 37% in the past year and violent crime is up by 21%, with domestic burglary up by 38% across the board.

I accept that this brings many challenges, and I know for a fact that North Wales police officers are doing a sterling job—they are concerned to drive crime down, and they want to do more—but the chief constable himself has said that we face a £2.1 million cut next year because of reduced funding from central Government. It is all very well to talk, as we did earlier, about taxpayers’ money, but central Government money comes from everybody, with the richest and the poorest in our society paying it through direct taxation, while the rises for local rate payers, who are now the source of funding needed to maintain the police service—we have had a significant 5% rise in north Wales—come from everybody, rich and poor, in north Wales entirely on the basis of their property, even though a council tax increase raises less in our area than it would, for example, here in Westminster. There is a funding issue, and it has been well rehearsed.

I support the proposal made from the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to increase police force numbers by about 10,000. That will not get us back to where we were when I did the job, but it would still be a significant increase and it would help to support the thin blue line in north Wales. There are now 1,300 police officers in north Wales, but we must remember that, although they are at work for eight hours in any one day, they are asleep for eight hours and they are off for eight hours, while some are off sick and some are on holiday so, recognising that as a whole, it is an extremely thin blue line.

Crime in urban areas is very important, and antisocial behaviour and a range of other issues do affect my constituency, but there are specific issues of rural crime, which this debate is about, and I want to draw the Minister’s attention to one in particular. I congratulate him on his elevation to the Front Bench, where I know he will do a good job. He represents a north-west constituency that has rural areas, and he comes to my constituency on occasion, so he will know it is a rural one. He has it within his gift today to take action, in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in support of the North Wales police rural unit in tackling sheep attacks and sheep worrying.

The Minister needs to know that in north Wales, and I pay tribute to North Wales police for this, we have a specific unit to deal with rural crime. It deals not just with attacks on sheep, but with attacks on birds, badger baiting and the enforcement of the fox hunting and hare coursing legislation, as well as fly-tipping and the rural issues of metal theft, tractor theft and all such crimes. Its officers do so in a specific and targeted way, dealing with the impact of those crimes, but also working to prevent them by visiting agricultural shows, talking to farmers and coming to farmers markets. They provide information to support the prevention of crime, which is a great use of policing time, rather than just dealing with the criminal activity itself.

The head of the unit, Rob Taylor, and its officers have brought to my attention the vital issue of sheep worrying. I want to put it on the Minister’s agenda because he can make a difference today by saying that he will act on it. Sheep worrying in my north Wales constituency has resulted in 648 dead animals in the past year. Farmers have shot 52 dogs because they were sheep worrying. There have been 449 livestock attacks. Damage to sheep and livestock has cost farmers thousands of pounds. Farmers in Lixwm in my constituency have experienced two attacks in 48 hours.

Why do I say that the Minister can take action? There are some clear things he can do, so let me put them on the record. I know those figures because North Wales police have kept a record of those attacks. At present, attacks on livestock in general—not just sheep—are not a recordable offence across the United Kingdom. The Home Office could make that a recordable offence so that we know how many attacks have taken place and where, and the extent of the problem.

The Government also need to address the fact that the police have no powers to seize dogs that undertake attacks. The fine for irresponsible dog owners whose dogs attack sheep is £1,000, but that does not even cover the cost of dead sheep following attacks on some of my constituents’ farms, and no compensation is paid to people who lose sheep as a result of criminal activity. It is very difficult to get sheep insurance if there has already been an attack. Finally, no disqualification order is applied to the owner of a dog that attacks sheep and kills perhaps 10 or 15 of them, as has happened on some of the farms in my constituency.

It is in the gift of the Minister to address those issues. He could make it a recordable offence, increase the fine, give the police powers to seize dogs legally, and give disqualification orders to dog owners whose dogs misbehave in a way that causes carnage, increased costs and damage.

The all-party parliamentary group on animal welfare, ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), has produced an excellent report on those issues which has been submitted to DEFRA. The Minister could indicate today that he will look at the issues. Although that would not increase police numbers or necessarily reduce crime in my urban areas, which is still a severe issue, or prevent murders linked to county line issues and other drug offences, it could help, in a small way, to support the efforts of the North Wales police rural unit to tackle sheep worrying and sheep crime. Many people think it is a frivolous crime, but it comes at a cost.

[Giles Watling]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Hanson]

I was about to finish, but I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Giles Watling]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am sorry for interrupting just as he was finishing. Does he think it might be helpful to reintroduce a form of licensing or registration for dogs so that we know where they are and who owns them?

[David Hanson]

There are a range of issues and that could certainly be looked at. In the immediate term, however, although my force records the crimes, we do not know how many animal attacks there are against livestock in Essex, for example, because the police are not required to record them. Recording them would be a start, and increasing the fine and allowing the police to disqualify dog owners are other major proposals. Important though I think other issues are, none of those proposals would be a major expenditure item for the police or for DEFRA. I hope they would act as a deterrent and help tackle this particular crime, which has caused mayhem in my constituency. They have the support of North Wales police. If I can have extra police, I will take them, and if we can deal with urban crime, I will take that, but the Minister has it in his gift to address those issues and I hope he will seriously consider doing so today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) in this important debate. As a district councillor and long-time resident of Tendring, I know that rural crime is all too common in the Tendring District Council area. To demonstrate that point further, only today I received a telephone call and an email from a couple of local residents who have both recently been the victims of rural crime. In the first incident, a constituent contacted me to report fly-tipping. I hear similar concerns on a weekly basis in my area, and fly-tipping is the most significant rural crime we face locally. It is estimated that my local authority spent over £74,000 last year alone on tackling this issue, which is £74,000 that should have been spent on improving public services for local taxpayers. That is an outrage: taxes should not have to be spent in this way.

Moreover, if the council is spending £74,000, unfortunate private landowners are probably spending much more. I say probably because we have no way of telling how much it costs them to clear up the mess. I am told by my local Essex police district commander, the excellent Paul Wells, that, on the whole, private landowners just get on with it and clear up the mess, so the actual cost to them and to the public is far higher than the headline figures suggest.

We must also consider the potential health risks of fly-tipping, because some people—some builders, et cetera—will just dump stuff that may contain hazardous waste, such as asbestos and the like. Consequently, we must continue to tackle this issue very strongly, and I agree with the Country Land and Business Association that greater penalties are needed. We need to punish offenders, and we need to make sure we use all opportunities for enforcement. Unfortunately, it appears that is not currently happening.

According to figures from the CLA, there were 1,132 incidents of fly-tipping in Tendring in 2016-17, yet no fines were given out, no vehicles were seized and nobody was prosecuted. To put it another way, 1,170 incidents were investigated, at a cost of £38,000 to the public purse, nobody was punished, and no costs were recouped.

Moving away from fly-tipping, an equally important local crime in our rural areas is dog theft, which has not been mentioned this afternoon. I am regularly contacted about this issue. I have previously raised the concerns of local residents in a Westminster Hall debate on the sale of puppies, and I would be grateful for more information from the Minister on what the Government plan to do about that issue.

According to Missing Pets Bureau, as many as 38% of all animals reported lost have been stolen, and as many as 60% of stolen dogs are tragically never recovered. I agree with the 93,557 individuals, and counting, who have signed a petition calling for the theft of a pet to be reclassified as a specific crime in its own right.

Rural crime in Tendring is not all doom and gloom. Our police are doing great work locally, and I thank our long-time rural and heritage crime officer Andy Long and all his Essex police colleagues for their hard work. Thanks to their efforts, the cost of rural crime has fallen by £10 million since 2010, meaning that the true cost of rural crime is now around £39.2 million—that is £39.2 million too much—which shows how effective our local police forces can be and demonstrates that things are moving in the right direction.

That brings me to my final point, because this debate, however focused on rural communities, comes back to a common word used in many debates in this House: enforcement. From knife crime to rural crime, we need bobbies on the beat to act, which is why I am delighted that the campaign I launched last year with fellow Essex MPs, as mentioned earlier, to get more flexibility in the police precept was successful.

Police and crime commissioners are now able to raise precept contributions by up to £1 a month. Together, this will mean force budgets can increase by up to £450 million nationally this year. There will be a welcome boost of £8.8 million across Essex to pay for around 150 new officers. These men and women, while enjoying the rural beauty of our fantastic sunshine coast of Clacton, will find their work cut out for them, yet I am pleased they will have the Government’s support.

I am also pleased that we have 150 extra officers in Essex, because I have just been informed on my mobile device that the police are currently out in my area looking for an escaped ostrich.

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of additional information. We are deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for presenting this important debate.

Grenfell Tower was quite simply an horrific tragedy that will doubtless have an effect on all of us for the rest of our lives. As someone who served as cabinet member for regeneration on my local authority, I am keen to have concrete answers as to how it was allowed to happen, who must be held accountable, and what will be done to prevent it from happening again.

I am sure that none of us here or anywhere else across the country will ever forget waking up on that Wednesday morning to see those terrible images of that blazing inferno in the heart of our capital city. Lives were lost that should never have been lost, and lives were also changed for ever. It could all have been avoided. That is why I welcome the findings of the Hackitt review’s interim report that calls for a culture change within the construction industry, which should take on much greater responsibility for what is built and how it is built.

The interim report also highlighted several broad areas for change, including improvements to the process, compliance and enforcement of regulations, as well as providing and creating a quick and effective route for concerned residents’ voices to be heard.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the interim report, Dame Judith stated that she would not recommend detailed changes to the technical requirements. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with groups, including the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Local Government Association, who have repeatedly called on Dame Judith to recommend bans on combustible materials on tower blocks and on so-called desktop studies? Does he not agree with me that the only solution is to ban combustible cladding?

[Giles Watling]

I absolutely agree that we must ban combustible cladding. It should never have been used in the first place. We must move on and that is why I was talking about how the construction industry must take on greater responsibility for what is built and how it is built.

I am pleased that the Government will consider any recommendations made by the review and how they will interact with the requirements of the construction product regulations. That is a step forward, but we still have many steps to take, including the work that Ministers have been doing with local government officials and organisations to provide support to the victims—both in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and in the long term. The autumn Budget 2017 also committed £28 million of additional community support to victims. It is right that we do all we can to support victims and to ensure that such a tragedy never ever happens again.

I call on all my colleagues to support the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck). It is a truly cross-party endeavour. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government helped to draft the Bill ahead of its publication. It will ensure that everyone is entitled to a decent home and that all properties should be free from potential risks to the health and safety of occupants. That really should go without saying. We can all agree that provisions must be put in place to ensure that that can happen everywhere. Having read the Bill, I agree with Shelter that it would help to achieve that aim by enabling meaningful action to be taken on poor and unsafe living conditions for renters.

The Bill will build on a raft of policies introduced by the Government aimed at driving up standards in the private and social rented sectors. Those include empowering local authorities to fine failing landlords up to £30,000. From April, local councils will also be able to issue banning orders to put the worst offenders out of business altogether. Passing the Bill would be another positive step towards ensuring that such a tragedy never happens again.

Although we have done some good work, I am conscious that questions remain unanswered, so it is right that we are having this very important inquiry and that the inquiry panel was expanded. Those we are seeking to provide answers for must feel certain that the inquiry is working for them. An expanded panel will provide that certainty, and all Members of the House must now allow the inquiry to proceed without its being used as a political football. In the face of such tragedy, we should all work together.

I do not say that the issue is not political—everything is political, from planning decisions to housing—but we need rational and responsible politics if we want to do right by the people who lived in that tower and by the countless people who live in other such towers across the nation. By doing that, we may well be left with the type of reasonable, thought-provoking and evidence-based political debate that uncovers all the aspects of Grenfell and moves us towards a better policy for all people in such housing in the future.

G4S: Immigration Removal Centres

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Where there is bad practice, it is important that staff are empowered to speak out. Will my hon. Friend tell me what G4S is doing to ensure that secure whistleblowing procedures are in place?

[Victoria Atkins]

That is one of the requirements in the action plan that the Government set G4S after the programme. We are very clear that whistleblowers are essential to ensuring that problems are brought to light effectively and quickly. As part of the action plan, G4S has reinforced its whistleblowing policy. All staff have been issued with cards featuring telephone numbers to enable them to raise concerns confidentially, and following work with the Jill Dando Institute, G4S has trained staff to become “speak out” champions, promoting and embedding the message that whistleblowing is not just desirable, but a clear expectation when unacceptable behaviour is witnessed. In addition, there is also the introduction of body-worn cameras, which serve, I hope, to reassure the House and others that there is transparency and that, if there are allegations, we can very quickly get to the truth of them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

8. What steps she is taking to upgrade Border Force boats.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

17. What steps she is taking to upgrade Border Force boats.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

21. What steps she is taking to upgrade Border Force boats.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wallace]

By the end of the financial year, the Border Force maritime fleet will have six CPVs and three cutters in the UK, plus two cutters deployed overseas to deal with the issue upstream—one in the Aegean and one in the central Mediterranean. Border Force has invested £108 million in new technology and capability to deal with some of those challenges and will commit a further £71 million this year.

[Giles Watling]

While I was volunteering with the lifeboats at Walton-on-the-Naze, I learned how important local maritime knowledge is. I believe that such intelligence would be useful to Border Force when solving and preventing crime. Is Border Force engaging with other agencies, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the coastguard and pilot boats, to share intelligence, tackle crime and keep our coastline safe and secure?

[Mr Wallace]

The key to improving our coastal security is better collection and exploitation of data. Some of that happens through full-time people, but it also happens through the many volunteers who populate the coastal paths and watch stations of our communities. That is why Border Force has set up the multi-agency general maritime intelligence bureau to bring together the existing organisations of HM Coastguard, HM Revenue and Customs, Border Force, the Ministry of Defence, and the bureaux linked directly to the National Maritime Information Centre.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If everybody asks a short, one-sentence question, and if replies are correspondingly brief, far more people will be able to contribute—it is not magic—and then we will spread the happiness across the Chamber.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

T2. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I apologise for not wishing you a very happy new year from the sunny shores of Clacton-on-Sea.Does my hon. Friend agree that sheer numbers of police is not the whole answer in tackling crime? In Clacton, Tendring District Council and Essex police have established a successful community safety hub with some 47 partners. Will the Minister please come to sunny Clacton to see how the scheme has been working and to look at some of the successes that we have achieved for ourselves?

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

The answer to an invitation to visit sunny Clacton-on-Sea is, of course, yes.

Policing

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I hesitate to correct the hon. Gentleman, but I am afraid that, once those on the Labour Benches take a bit more time to understand how the police settlement actually works, they will know that the flat-cash settlement is a combination of precept and the grant from the centre. Taking those in combination, local police forces are going to move from a situation of flat cash to flat real. That is a significant change. If the hon. Gentleman bothers to go and talk to his local PCC, which I am sure he will, the PCC will explain it to him.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for this very encouraging statement, particularly around flexibility in the police precept—an issue he knows I have been campaigning on for some time. However, will he confirm that the settlement will dramatically improve policing across Essex and particularly on my much overlooked sunshine coast at Clacton-on-Sea?

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend and other Essex colleagues who were very forceful and constructive in coming to me with clear endorsements from police and crime commissioners across the system for the proposals on increased flexibility on precepts so that democratically accountable police and crime commissioners have the freedom to increase local taxes for local priorities. Roger Hirst, an excellent police and crime commissioner, has surveyed several thousand people in Essex. The results of that survey show that what we are proposing today will be extremely acceptable to the people of Essex because they want to see more investment in their policing, and that is what this settlement will deliver.

Report on Recent Terrorist Attacks

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was clear that we would make those resources available to Manchester, and we have done that. We will look carefully at the proposal from the Mayor of London, to see how we can assist. We will have to see the evidence first, but are likely to give the same sort of support.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that our security services are second to none in being proactive through the use of initiatives such as Prevent, without which we would probably be far worse off?

[Amber Rudd]

That is an interesting point, and we do need to safeguard individuals who might become victims of radicalisation. The Prevent programme strives to do exactly that, and between 2015 and 2016 has diverted over 300 people through the Channel programme, who might otherwise have sought to do us harm on the streets.

Oral Answers to Questions

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

T6. After lengthy conversations with the district commander of my local district of Tendring and with Roger Hirst, the police and crime commissioner for Essex, I know that there is a strong feeling that they could do with some additional funding to fund their frontline officers. This could be raised from the council tax precept. Essex currently has a very low per capita precept, meaning that residents in Essex pay less than comparable areas. Will my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary consider lifting the 2% cap on any precept increase without the need for a referendum?

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). I will be delighted to sit down with Essex MPs to discuss this. As I said, a number of commissioners have approached us in similar vein, and it is part of our thinking as we look ahead towards the 2018-19 settlement.

Health, Social Care and Security

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am going to make some more progress.

We are recruiting over 1,900 additional security and intelligence staff. To combat terrorism, we also work with technology companies to tackle terrorist and extremist use of their platforms. The UK has been leading in driving a global response on this subject. This week, leading communications service providers announced the formation of an industry-led global forum to counter terrorism, which they committed to following a meeting I had with them in March.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the perfect utopian society—as Sir Thomas More would have it—we would have no police at all, so it is clearly not about numbers and vast amounts of cash, but effectiveness?

[Amber Rudd]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House and thank him for his comments about wanting a much more peaceful world—I think that is something we can all endorse.