Rural Crime

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a good question, but the findings of the Captive & Controlled report are not easily replicated, so it is difficult to give him the assurance he seeks that the gap is narrowing. But teams in the Home Office and Defra have sought to understand the additional challenges that victims in rural communities face, and we have invested to help address those. That includes funding for an older persons’ rural domestic abuse practitioner in Northumberland and support for children, young people and families in rural communities in Shropshire and Devon. I would also say that the duty to collaborate we are introducing through the Victims and Prisoners Bill will further help police forces understand and commission to meet the needs of the victims in their communities.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, would the Government agree with me that there is a direct relationship between crime and poverty? What are we doing, really, about all the things that are happening in the countryside that are stripping people of jobs? It is very, very difficult to get a job in the countryside that pays enough for you to live on the wage. It is a low-wage economy.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That may be the case, but there are also lots of good opportunities in the country and, of course, we live in a world where the gig economy gives people opportunities to live pretty much wherever they want.

Police Recruitment: Reform

Lord Bird Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate in effect asked me two questions. Decisions about police recruitment, including how recruitment and selection processes are run, are a matter for chief constables and police and crime commissioners, and are therefore managed locally by forces. But they are managed within a national application, assessment and selection framework, which is in line with guidance maintained by the College of Policing. That guidance was updated in February 2023, and all 43 forces are now utilising the various online assessment protocols and the face-to-face requirements.

On the culture of the police, it is difficult to disagree with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, who said that

“the best processes and structures in the world cannot replace focus and leadership. It is incredibly important that leadership at every rank in policing takes that seriously”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/2/24; col. 456.]

This is a conversation that he has had with police leaders and the College of Policing to ensure that the attitudes highlighted in the report change. Without that shift in attitude, the culture will remain the same, which is clearly not acceptable.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Has the Minister ever looked at the fact that we are talking about a class issue here? Most police officers come from the class that I come from, and most of the leading people who run the police force come from another class. It is a bit like the Army. When are the middle classes going to join the police force and create a mix, rather than relying exclusively on the working classes to do the hard part?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. Of course, the point of the police is that they are there to represent us all. According to the Peelite principles, they have to have our consent to do so, and therefore they should very much look like us.

Refugees: Homelessness

Lord Bird Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness has asked me a number of questions. The Prime Minister committed in December 2022 to clear the historical asylum backlog by the end of this year. Those are the legacy cases, and provisional data to the end of November 2023 suggest that 80% of them have already been dealt with. It is nowhere near the figure that the noble Baroness suggested. I will write. I am reluctant to give provisional figures for obvious reasons—they still need to be verified.

On extending the 28-day move-on period, the asylum accommodation estate is under huge strain, as the House is well aware, so increasing the move-on period would exacerbate those pressures. There are currently no plans to extend the prescribed period of 28 days for how long individuals remain on asylum support once they have received the grant of asylum. We are engaging with the Department for Work and Pensions and DLUHC on ensuring individuals can move on from asylum support as smoothly as possible.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing about the increasing antagonism between UK people who are homeless and people who are refugees? We need to address this, because we do not want the outbreak of racism and all those other chauvinisms that are happening down at the bottom end of society.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord; we absolutely do not want those. The Government work closely with police forces and other agencies to ensure that sort of thing does not happen.

Vagrancy Act 1824

Lord Bird Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, at the start of the year the Home Office was asked to take forward provisions to repeal and replace the Vagrancy Act, as the noble Baroness has referred to. That builds on the Lords amendment to the PCSC Act 2022 to repeal the Vagrancy Act once replacement offences have been considered. That amendment received support across parties in both the Lords and the Commons. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities remains the policy lead on homelessness and rough sleeping. We are working closely with that department to determine the replacement legislation. That legislation is not ready yet. An extensive action plan for anti-social behaviour has been published, which goes into significant mitigations for homelessness. As soon as parliamentary time allows, we will do this.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, between 1964 and 1969 capital punishment was not used. It was allowed to fall into non-use. Could we do the same with the Vagrancy Act, which is one of the most heinous crimes because it turns homeless people into criminals?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the Government do not collect figures on the police usage of the Vagrancy Act and as the police are operationally independent, we cannot comment on figures. The Ministry of Justice figures on prosecution show that it is a very small number of people. There were four prosecutions for sleeping out in 2021 and 459 prosecutions for begging in 2021.

Prostitution

Lord Bird Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the National Police Chiefs’ Council updated its guidance in 2019. It is important to note that that guidance prioritises safety over enforcement action in terms of the criminalisation of these practices. It is incredibly important that this guidance is followed because it advises forces to focus on how to make those involved in sex work safe and to conduct risk assessments before enforcing brothel-keeping legislation. As to tax, I am not going to comment.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I look forward to the day when we do not have sex workers. What is the Government’s attitude on working towards getting rid of the reason why people are driven into sex work, which is nearly always the slavery of poverty?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, it is fair to say that it is the oldest profession, so I suspect that we will never get rid of it entirely, which is of course regrettable. In terms of poverty, our strategy—with all the things that are being done at the moment to alleviate that—is fairly clear.

Violence against Women and Domestic Violence

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, that is under Article 44. We did not consider that there was a strong case to make an exception for forced abortion or forced sterilisation. Those offences are covered by general offences of physical violence, for example ABH and GBH. We do not apply dual criminality to those offences when they are committed in normal physical violence contexts, as we know of no jurisdiction which does not have general offences of violence equivalent to ours. There is therefore no reason to take a different approach when it comes to forced abortion and forced sterilisation.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Will the Minister reassure us that the Government are going to do something about those people caught by this lack of justice while they are making up their mind? Will they be able to look back at all those people who will, while they are making up their mind, be destroyed by the gross misuse of them as human beings?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I referred earlier to the pilot scheme being extended for a year, so I would hope that nobody will fall into the category described by the noble Lord.

Violent Crime, Gang Activity and Burglaries

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I would like to congratulate those governors of certain prisons who, I have been told, are wise enough not to allow the release of prisoners on a Friday. This is because out of the 70,000 a year who move out of the Prison Service, about 500 a month go straight into homelessness and the problems that they had before they came in. Lo and behold, in spite of all the efforts of people—probation officers, prison officers, policemen, members of the public and homeless organisations, et cetera—we still find that people end up back in prison.

I do not know how many governors do this; it is difficult to find out. As noble Lords know, governors are like captains of ships, who can do all sorts of things that we would like them to do. Some of the do and some of them do not. I used to go into a prison very regularly and talk to the prisoners. I had a brilliant time and took the mickey out of them and told them they were not as bright as me, because I was out and they were in. I had fun about it and actually built up a kind of attitude around education and social change. But lo and behold, another governor comes in and I find it incredibly difficult to get in because they do not have the same concerns.

When I spoke to a conference of governors and senior officers in the Prison Service, I asked how many of them had rehabilitation in the first five items of things that they considered. Not one of them had rehabilitation, because they had the usual stuff: security, so that the chaps and chapesses do not get away and officers are not attacked and hurt; and so that people do not commit suicide. They had those considerations and very few officers had rehabilitation.

I am really pleased there are governors—and I thank them—who have faced up to the fact that if prisoners are let out of prison on a Friday and they have had problems before, they will not be able to get to social security or support systems and will get into trouble over the weekend. Lo and behold, they might find themselves doing things that, after the event, they did not want to be doing. As I said, 70,000 prisoners a year leave the Prison Service and about 500 fall into homelessness.

We spend about £3 billion on our prisons. That is not a lot of money; it adds up to about £44,000 for each prisoner, but if they have problems and are likely to try to commit suicide or are violent, that figure can go up another £10,000, £20,000 or £30,000. We have prisoners who cost £100,000. As the right reverend Prelate said, we are spending the money in the wrong place. We are not spending it on prevention.

When I was banged up, it cost £63 a week, I think. That seems low, but it was three times what my dad was earning as a plasterer—so there is a kind of weirdness. I would like to see the complete and utter reformation of not just how we treat prisoners but how we treat crime. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, talked about the enormous increase in burglary in the West Midlands. What is burglary? You can call it burglary, but you can also call it an economy. You could call it a form of trade. You could call it all sorts of things.

Something is going desperately wrong in our country when we are putting so much effort into all sorts of things but we are not putting any effort into dismantling poverty. What do you think knife crime is? I will tell you what it is. I remember, as a boy, being a member of a gang and having a flick-knife. I went round imposing myself on people who did not have a flick-knife. We did not use knives as often then because we had hanging over us the threat that, if we killed somebody, we ourselves would be killed—if we were over the age of 18.

I am not very liberal about the fact that what we have now is a complete devaluation of human life. When there is poverty, how do people who are stuck in poverty express themselves? How do they make themselves something on the block, something in their block of flats or something on the street? I know that, if I was back there, I would be seeking some kind of identity. A knife is a brilliant way of getting some identity. If, at the same time, you are surrounded by TV, Netflix and all this other rubbish that shows the devaluation of human life, with no spirituality or love for each other, you will not give a toss if that knife goes into somebody and reduces them to nothingness.

We are in the middle of a crisis. We are not in a crisis just because Truss has screwed things up. That is a manifestation of a crisis. There is a deeper crisis. When I came into the House of Lords, I came here to dismantle poverty. I did not come in to make the poor a bit more comfortable or move the chairs on the “Titanic”. We really need to stop, think and wonder why we let our police officers down. I know them. I know the guys who are coming back beaten up by what they have to see and the lives they live—like our prison officers, teachers and people in the community. It may sound weird, but I think we really need to reinvent our thinking around crime. We have to sit back and say, “Whatever we’ve done is not working”.