Knife Crime Prevention Orders

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if he will make a statement on knife crime prevention orders.

[Mr Speaker]

Before we proceed further on this matter, let me say this. I warmly welcome the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, and I am sure I speak for colleagues in saying that we look forward to her characteristic competence and commitment at the Dispatch Box. That said, let it be crystal clear that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should be in this Chamber answering this urgent question.

I know the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), and I have known him since he entered this House in 2010. For what it is worth, I am sure he is a very clever fellow, and on a one-to-one basis I have always found him unfailingly courteous. However, for him to fail to be in the Chamber on Thursday to make a statement about his new anti-knife crime initiative was at best ill judged and at worst rank discourteous to the House of Commons. If the right hon. Gentleman was able to find time to brief or to ensure that others briefed the newspapers on his behalf, and he managed to scuttle off to do a radio interview and then to pop up on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday to give viewers and the nation the benefit of his views, the right hon. Gentleman should have been here.

If the Secretary of State for the Home Department aspires to something a little more elevated than to be a jobbing functionary of the Executive branch and wants to be a serious and respected parliamentarian, he has to develop antennae and respect for the rights of the House of Commons. In the circumstances—and he has had notice that he should be here—it is both ill judged and rude of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to send his, admittedly brilliant, junior Minister into the Chamber when he should be here. I am sorry; I take no view on the policy because that is not for the Speaker to do, but in procedural terms it really is time that he upped his game.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Mr Speaker, if I may, I will address that point before we move on to the very important issue at hand. I know that the Home Secretary means absolutely no discourtesy—he is a regular and assiduous Minister. I hope that I will be able to answer questions today in a way that meets with the House’s approval. Please do not think that this in any way undermines our commitment to this important topic. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will hear what you have said, Mr Speaker.

Knife crime is devastating for victims, families and our communities. The Government are determined to do all they can to tackle it, along with our partners across civil society, including local government and those in education, health, policing and the charitable sector. We have a comprehensive programme of action set out in the serious violence strategy to tackle knife crime and prevent young people from being drawn into crime and violence. This public health approach includes support for prevention projects through the early intervention youth fund and the anti-knife crime community fund, support for police weeks of action under Operation Sceptre, and our ongoing media campaign #knifefree to encourage young people to understand that there are alternatives to carrying knives.

We will also be building on longer-term intervention work, with the new £200 million youth endowment fund, and consulting on a new legal duty to underpin multi-agency work to tackle serious violence. However, it is also vital that the police have the powers they need. That is why we listened when the police—those on the frontline in confronting knife-carrying young people—told us that they required additional powers of intervention to deal more effectively with people being drawn into knife crime, and we have acted.

The police asked us to introduce knife crime prevention orders to reach young people before they are convicted of an offence. These orders are aimed at young people who are at risk of engaging in knife crime, at people the police call “habitual knife carriers” of any age, and at those who have been convicted of a violent offence involving knives. The orders will enable the courts to place restrictions on people, such as curfews and geographical restrictions, as well as requirements such as engaging in positive interventions. The intention is that the new orders will be preventive and will support those subject to them in staying away from crime.

We have therefore tabled amendments to the Offensive Weapons Bill, which is currently before the other place. The amendments were tabled last Tuesday, and in line with parliamentary convention, a letter was sent to all noble peers who spoke at Second Reading, as well as to the Chairs of the Home Affairs Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Delegated Powers Committee, and to shadow Ministers from Her Majesty’s Opposition and the Scottish National party. A copy of the letter was placed in the Lords Library, and a copy is being placed in the Commons Library.

The amendments to the Offensive Weapons Bill, which introduce these orders, are due to be considered in the other place in detail this Wednesday. The Bill will, of course, return to this House after it has completed its passage through the Lords, and I hope all Members on both sides of the House will lend their full support to this important new preventive measure when the Bill returns to this place.

[Vernon Coaker]

I appreciate the Minister being here, but this is a matter of national significance, which has been raised in this House by Members on both sides. The Home Secretary has one of the most important positions in Government; he is looked to by the public of this country to be a lead in tackling these issues—not just in London, but right across the country. Time and time again in this Chamber, I and others have asked where the Home Secretary is. I tell the Minister this: the British public will look at this, and they will find it incredible—absolutely incredible—that the Home Secretary can appear on the television and go to various places to address meetings, but that he cannot turn up in this Chamber to explain an initiative that he has put forward. The public of this country will be asking the simple question: where is he? I said on Thursday that he was invisible; he is not just invisible—he has vanished from this Chamber. It is not good enough, and something needs to be done.

According to the police, 10,000 children are involved in county lines. Knife crime offences across the country are at record levels. Homicides are at record levels. Children are being slaughtered on the streets and these orders are what the Government come forward with. It is simply not good enough.

Why is it necessary to have knife crime prevention orders when it is already a criminal offence to have a knife in public without good reason? The Minister talked about “habitually” carrying a knife. For goodness’ sake, it is not habitual. Something needs to be done! Instead of introducing new laws, why does not the Minister, with others, support the police to enforce existing laws? Why have we seen a reduction in police numbers, when her own evidence tells her that they make a difference in tackling this issue? Is it not the case that knife crime prevention orders merely paper over the cracks? Of course we want to prevent young people from becoming involved, but where are the youth services? Where are the street workers? Where are the people out there working with young people who have been excluded from school to prevent them from getting into trouble in the first place?

How will knife crime prevention orders tackle the huge crisis facing our country? Instead of introducing the orders, the Home Secretary should be chairing Cobra. This is a national emergency. This is a national crisis. Up and down the country people will wonder why the Government are not using the full force of the state to tackle it. They need to help the young people who are having problems with knife crime and tackle the criminal gangs who ruthlessly exploit them.

MI5, GCHQ, MI6 and the National Crime Agency, led by the Home Secretary, should be reporting regularly to Parliament. Anybody would of course welcome serious crime prevention orders if they helped, but the British public and Members will all want to know, from the Minister and from the Government, why the state will not respond with ruthlessness and determination to take on the criminal activity that is putting so many of our young people in danger and ruining the lives of countless people in communities across the country. If there was a terrorist act, the state, quite rightly, would respond. I tell the Minister this: this is a national emergency. The lives of countless families and young people are being ruined. We need to step up to the mark. The British public demand no less of all of us.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his impassioned question. He will know, from the discussions we have constantly on this topic, that the Home Office is a team. Colleagues will have noticed the Policing Minister sitting next to me. This is a team effort, not just in the Home Office but across Government and across civil society.

We are introducing the orders because at the very end of August last year the police asked us for a preventive order to get to a very small cohort of children, who have not yet been convicted of criminal offences but on whom the police have received intelligence, in an effort to intervene before they get a first conviction, with all the terrible repercussions that can have both for the victims of any crimes they commit but also for their own life chances. These orders are about prevention. We want to give the police the power, through the Bill, to seek an order from a court, on a civil standard of proof, so that the state can wrap its arms around children if schools and local police officers think they are at risk of carrying knives frequently. The orders mirror similar prevention orders we have, such as sexual harm prevention orders, by placing negative and positive requirements on children who do not necessarily have a criminal conviction, to try to drag them away from the gangs that the hon. Gentleman rightly identifies as being central to this criminality.

Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) invited me to his constituency. I heard from a group of people who are on the frontline tackling these crimes how young vulnerable children are being targeted by criminal gangs. This is why we have the serious violence strategy. This is why we have the cross-party serious violence taskforce. This is why we have the serious organised crime strategy. We want to tackle not just the exploitation of children, but the criminals behind it. We can agree on one thing, which is that we all want this to stop. We will achieve that by working together and by intervening early.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate. I was reflecting, as I think the country is, on how we arrived at this point. It seems that a catastrophic failure of leadership has brought us to within a few weeks of when we are supposed to leave the European Union without us having any clear plan for what that should look like. There is no clear consensus in Parliament, or indeed our country. When the history books are written, they will see the way that the Government have run things since the referendum as absolutely catastrophic. History will also write that, at this time, particularly yesterday, Parliament recognised the importance of reasserting its authority to try to ensure some sort of reason was brought to the chaos all around us.

How can a Government be held in contempt by the Parliament that they are supposed to control? That has never happened in our history. It is simply astonishing that that just seems to have been swept away. So I say with sorrow that we are in a situation now where as a Parliament we are looking to say what sort of future we want for our country and how we try to resolve this. Parliament is about trying to say that we need to re-establish and rebuild consensus. There will be a variety of views on how that is done but let us be clear: Parliament—virtually everyone who has spoken—has said that there is not a binary choice between what the Prime Minister has put before us and no deal. That is not the choice that faces all parts of the United Kingdom; it is a false choice. It does the Prime Minister—and, moreover, the country—no good at all to have that presented as the choice.

Parliament’s decision yesterday that we will not allow no deal should reassure the country, but it is unclear what happens after Tuesday if the deal, as we all expect, is voted down, as it should be. I for one will join my colleagues in happily marching through the Lobby to vote against the deal, in the belief that Parliament will ensure a better deal for all people of the United Kingdom as a result of our standing up and saying, “We will not be bullied by the Executive.”

So what does that actually mean? It may be that we have to extend article 50. It may be that we have to go back to the European Union. It may be that there will be a general election. It may even be that there will be a second referendum. All those things are unknown, but step by step and bit by bit, this Parliament will look at the facts and govern in the interests of the country. That is what is important, and that is why what happened yesterday was significant.

Let us also say in this debate that we can, as a Parliament, start to reassert some of the values that perhaps should have been spoken about more loudly during the referendum campaign. Let me start with immigration. I think immigration has been good for this country. I think it has benefited this country. That should be said loudly and clearly, time and again, because it is something that virtually every Member—sorry, I shall correct myself and say every Member—in this Parliament would agree with. Why do we not shout it out? Why do we not take on the bigots and the racists much more assertively? I say this about migration, not just immigration. There have been problems with migration, but migration overall has been good for this country as well. That is not to say that there are not problems with it, and of course those need to be dealt with, but as soon as we give ground on these things, into that space flows populism and all the anti-establishment rhetoric that we hear. That was a failure in the referendum campaign.

It does no good for the Government—the Executive—to pretend that this deal sorts anything out. If we do leave at the end of March 2019, what will be important is the fact that nothing is decided. My constituents and many constituents around the country thought—to be honest, until a few weeks ago I thought this as well—that, on leaving the European Union, large numbers of things would have been sorted out, such as trade and security. However, when I read the political declaration, not much has been decided, other than that we are going to leave—if that happens. What does the political declaration say about what happens after that? It says, “We will consider”, “Our aspiration is”, “We look to”, “We hope that”. My goodness me, Mr Speaker—is that what we are asking the British people to accept as a result of our withdrawal from the European Union?

I do not quite know where we will go, but I do know this: the fact that this Parliament has reasserted its authority means that we will be able to stand up, in whatever way we feel is correct, in the interests of the British people and that we will put them first, whatever part of the United Kingdom we represent.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me, but it is not a question of deferring responsibility. It is the responsibility of the local police and crime commissioner and the chief constable, under our system of policing, to decide local policing priorities. That is why we had the police and crime commissioner elections a couple of years ago.

The right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) is assiduous in his parliamentary questions to me about retail crime, but if hon. Members have concerns that retailers and retail staff in their local area are not being looked after, I encourage them to take it up with their police and crime commissioner, because it really is their decision as to how local resources are prioritised.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not realise quite how this looks? Shop workers across the country—in every part of the country, every constituency and every region—the frontline workers, their union and the police are saying, “We do not need consultation; we need a change in the law to protect us.” What the Minister is saying, and I say this with respect, is that she and her officials know better. I say we should listen to what the shop workers of this country are telling us and mend the gap in the law.

[Victoria Atkins]

I do listen—I must disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that. The point I am making is that the laws that can protect shop workers are already in force, so it is not a question of making a new law because we hope that that will address the criminality, because those laws are already in place. There are public order offences, so where someone is rude or abusive, that is a criminal offence already. Our job here is to make law, but this is also sometimes about how it is applied on the ground, and that is what I am talking about. I am talking about saying to the NPCC and others, “What’s happening on these concerns colleagues are raising about how retail workers are being treated in their shops?” I know that this is an important issue, not only to Labour Members, but to my colleagues and to me. That is why if we can do nothing else, we should get the message out there that the law already exists to protect shop workers. We should focus on how that is pushed and put into effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

I am not sure this is how these things often work on the Floor of the House, but this is a helpful way forward for all sides. I am grateful to the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman.

On that note, I have said all I want to say on new clause 16, which I think is good, and new clause 1, which will be taken away for consideration.

[Vernon Coaker]

Let me start by saying that I think we are all pleased with what the Minister has just said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) about his new clause 1. The shop workers of the country, the unions and people across the whole of our nation will be pleased with that and will look forward to what we come up with in due course.

Organised Crime: Young People’s Safety

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. I certainly think the only way forward is a multi-agency approach. I hesitate to say that the co-ordinating role should be placed at local government’s door, given the swingeing cuts that it is absorbing, but there is already a legal wellbeing framework that this work could fall under. The Home Office has a responsibility to demand such strategies from local government and strategic partners, to ensure that they are in place and that there are resources to provide for them. That is my second ask: a strategy and the necessary investment in services that provide resilience for children. I humbly suggest that professional youth and play workers are essential to that activity.

My third ask is about training for those in the field, who may not understand the full malignancy of the beast we are dealing with and how it cleverly manipulates our stretched services and staff to keep a child within its clutches. My constituent—I will call her Deepa—was increasingly concerned about her son. He had fallen in with a bad crowd at school, although she did not know it, but she knew he was slipping away from her. His best friend had been excluded from school for drug-related activities, but she did not know.

Alarm bells should have started ringing at the school when Deepa told them that her son was starting to spend more time away from home without any explanation, simply going missing, sometimes for days at a time. He had clothes and a phone that she had not provided and that he had no resources to pay for. He was yet another child being groomed and drawn into criminal activity, vulnerable to violence; I am sorry to say that, two years on, that is still the case.

Deepa raised her concerns at school, but the groomers are very clever. They know how to manipulate the system. Her son told the school that parenting was the problem, that she was too strict; he hinted at abuse, and that was it. Not only could Deepa not get any information or help from the school or social services once the allegations had been made, but she was put under investigation. His absences were placed at her door. They were her fault. It is clear that the social workers and the school involved simply did not understand the nature of the crime or the criminals they were dealing with.

Deepa and her son have also, sadly, been let down by a charity paid for by public funds to provide mentoring for her boy, to do intensive work with him to help him exit the gang. He was up for it. Things had happened that terrified him, boys he knew were dead or injured, but this charity was only paid for three sessions and he needed more. Things escalated. He needed help. He phoned them, wanting to talk to his mentors, absolutely desperate, but they did not respond. They had done their three sessions and they had no more money to do others. Deepa wanted to pay for sessions herself, but she could not; they were way too expensive. Her window to exit her boy from a gang is likely to be closed because the services that she needed did not have access to funding.

How much more expensive will putting that child into custody—that is where it is going—and reccurring offending be over the years to come? The Minister must know that it is a false economy. It will be another life wasted. My third ask is for effective, up-to-date training for professionals who come face to face with the strategies that criminals employ, and to provide those professionals with the resources that they need to fund effective treatments and techniques to remove our children from the clutches of these criminal gangs.

As the Minister knows, in order to catch these criminals we need information. Those with the information in the midst or at the edge of the gangs live in absolute fear, convinced that we—the state—cannot or will not protect them. Our children have no trust whatsoever in the systems that we have created, so they do not engage. If we are to get the information that we need, we will need to find new ways for our children and our communities to report to us. Frankly, as the Minister probably knows, Crimestoppers is simply not trusted.

My young constituents absolutely believe that calls to Crimestoppers are traced by the police, and that callers are attacked for being snitches as a result. There is no doubt in their minds that Crimestoppers is not safe, and that the police will arrive at their doorstep should they phone it. It does not matter if that is real or not—that is what they believe. My fourth ask is for a trusted third-party reporting system that will pass information on with absolutely all identifiable details removed. Callers have to know that they cannot and will not be called or visited by officers, and that they will not be targeted as a result of providing us with information.

Information is not only about initial reports. We also need more people to feel safe when acting as witnesses. My fifth ask is for better protection and care for witnesses. Darren is one of those affected. His house was attacked by armed gang members because of rumours about snitching, and his neighbour’s door was shot through three times. It is a wonder that no one was hurt. Three months later, Darren still had nowhere to move, was afraid to leave his home, and was under the constant threat of another attack.

Maybe Darren was helping the police, or maybe it was just a vicious rumour, but the effect of the failure to protect and move him is the same. Stories like Darren’s are known in my community, and they erode trust. Constituents who have information—children who want to break out of their exploitative relationship with a gang—are afraid to do so, because that is what will happen to them.

As the Minister knows, witnesses are amazingly brave in coming forward, and they deserve our greatest respect, our protection and our help to give them a new, fresh start. However, far too many get the exact opposite. That is what happened to Ashley, who is 16, and his dad, Nathan. Ashley did an amazingly brave thing: he gave evidence against a criminal gang member in a murder trial. He has personally experienced serious violence and has been threatened with death many times because he provided the police with information and stood up and testified in court.

The continuing danger to Ashley’s life is clear, so he and his father were given new identities and were relocated. It is reassuring that this basic protection was offered, but I am sorry to say that it was not followed through. Ashley and Nathan have been badly let down. Before his son gave evidence, Nathan had a regular job and a regular tenancy in a housing association home, which they had to leave. It was a stable life of contribution to the community. However, in the months after the trial, their situation became the stuff of nightmares.

Nathan had to leave his job behind, along with his name. He is now unemployed. He was left without any income because he and Ashley were not given the documentation—simple things such as photo IDs—with their new names, leaving him unable to claim the benefits that he is entitled to and that he and Ashley need to support them through this awful, stressful time. Nathan has been repeatedly forced to reveal their situation to jobcentre counter staff to try to get help. Every single time he does so brings the clear possibility of their being exposed, as well as fear and anxiety that the information could lead to his son’s life being in danger once more.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lyn Brown]

I will get to the end of the story. Nathan has now accrued more than £4,000 of rent arrears through absolutely no fault of his own. The system did not work. It happened because he was stuck for months between landlords, agencies and a local authority—not Newham—that would not talk to other agencies, and because he was given appalling and incorrect advice. The housing association allocated him a new property, but it was not nearly fit for human habitation: it had no heating, no furniture and no cooker; on the other hand, it did contain asbestos. All the while, Nathan and Ashley were penniless, stressed and awfully anxious because Nathan still could not access his benefits.

It came to a head last year. At Christmas they had no money for food, let alone gifts, and no secure home. Nathan was on the brink of returning home to his family in the area that he and Ashley had fled. It would have put their lives at risk of revenge violence, but at least they would have had some food and comfort and some of the basic support, understanding and respect that they had had so little of.

[Vernon Coaker]

I am sorry to have interrupted my hon. Friend’s flow; I thought she had finished that story. She makes an incredibly important point. Does she agree that the Minister needs to respond fully to these points, particularly in the light of the Government’s policy now to use more children as covert human intelligence sources? The Minister needs to say something about that and to answer my hon. Friend’s points in full detail.

[Lyn Brown]

I absolutely agree. The system lets down young witnesses like Ashley and their families. It fails them at almost every turn, it puts them at risk and it erodes trust. That trust is necessary for us to get the information that we need, let alone anything else. Hearing these stories makes people in my community less likely to engage with the authorities when they have information that could help us. That has to change.

My fifth ask is for public bodies to have a duty of care placed on them to work together to understand and support families such as Ashley and Nathan’s, because without their help and co-operation, we will not get the information that we need to put an end to the blight of county lines exploitation. We need a national dedicated system of caseworkers trained to act as a single point of contact, working with statutory services; a named representative for those under threat because they have helped us, the police and the courts. They are trying to do the right thing. Nathan, Ashley and others like them deserve a genuine path to a secure future after the brave decisions that they have made.

Much of the violence is fuelled by social media, so my sixth ask is for stronger action against incitement online, whatever form it takes. In recent months, local people have been especially angry about one particular drill music video filmed in my constituency. It is effectively a celebration of gang murder. The rapper brags about killing with knives and guns and attacking people in broad daylight, and gloats about having killed one man by name and planning to kill his brother. He mocks other young men for just talking about murder and not acting. All of this was filmed by masked men in streets that my constituents recognise, because they live there, because they walk and work there every day and because their children play there.

The murders this video is about may be fictitious, but by looking at the online comments we quickly see many young people who believe it is real. They explain the murder references to each other and openly admire the rapper and his group for the supposed killings. The original copy of the video had more than 1 million views—that staggers me. It was taken down, but other copies have since been uploaded, and one has already had more than 120,000 views. The technology to remove those copies automatically exists, as the Select Committee on Home Affairs has repeatedly pointed out. We need to understand why that is not being done.

The law may be unclear about whether such videos illegally incite violence, but I believe they are dangerous. They make the grooming of children easier by glamorising drug dealing and murder as a lucrative and exciting alternative to the hard and unrewarding work they see demonstrated in the lives of their parents. Presented as an alternative economic model, it is offered to children and made to look exciting. The videos do not just glamorise crime; they taunt and humiliate rivals. These are young, impulsive teenagers; there is so much pressure pushing them to respond, and the music itself tells them what response is expected: more knife attacks and more children dead. The Home Affairs Committee called for a wholesale review of the legislation on hate speech, harassment and extremism online to bring the law up to date. I think that that is sorely needed, and a better approach to online incitement should be one of the goals, so that is my sixth ask.

My seventh and final ask brings me back where I started—the nine deaths and the trauma caused in my community and how we can help the healing. After the appalling murder of Sami Sidhom in April, there was an immediate and powerful surge of mutual aid and support in his community of Forest Gate. As I have told the House before, his neighbours rushed to help him and gave him some comfort as he died. They were traumatised, but they received so little support. The trauma is not felt just by the families, friends, schoolmates and neighbours, although of course they suffer the worst. In Forest Gate, there was a palpable feeling that the community was in crisis after Sami died. There was a cumulative effect, though, as it was not just because of Sami but because of all the other young people who had died in the year before, especially CJ, who was just 14 and was shot in a playground in Forest Gate.

We need to provide support for whole communities who are traumatised in the way that I have described. The strong response that I saw in Forest Gate can help local people to cope, recover and heal. Community leaders have a really important role, but often they are volunteers; they give their time and energy freely, and it is simply unfair to expect them to take on all this without training, resources or professional support. I think that we need a professional response to assist communities with the trauma and mental health issues that arise after traumatic incidents, especially those involving young people.

Having spoken to people about what they feel would help, I would like to see the development of peripatetic regional mental health teams, consisting of people who can provide rapid, accessible support for communities after tragic events. My seventh ask is that the Minister works with the Department of Health and Social Care and find a way to make that happen. I would be happy to sit down and think about that some more with him or any other Minister in the Home Office team. I know that Marie Gabriel, soon to be a CBE and chair of the East London NHS Foundation Trust, is keen to support it as well. This is not just about crime; I am sure that all of us can think of other tragic events—some of them not physically very far away from this building—after which mobile teams like that would have been very helpful.

The deaths over the past year have caused so much trauma and pain in my constituency, and they have exposed our failures in this place over many years to prevent the rise of county lines grooming and exploitation, and to give young people the hope and opportunities that would make them safer. The problems cannot all be solved by the Home Office acting alone, but children are dying in my constituency, across London and across the country, and all of us have an enormous responsibility to act. I believe that the Minister could play a very positive role in ensuring that the cross-departmental connections and strategies that we need are created, implemented and sustained. I would support him in that, and I hope to hear that he is committed to making those things happen.

Finally, I place on the record my enormous gratitude to a group of women in West Ham whose children have tragically been caught up in the county lines operation. I have learned so much from those women over the past year. They have been so honest and so generous with their time. I hope that today I have done them proud and represented them properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) finished her speech by saying that she hoped that she had represented her constituents well, particularly the women to whom she was referring. Anyone listening to what she has just said and the way she has said it—with the obvious depth of feeling on her part—will absolutely think that she has done her constituents proud, but more than that, she has done the country proud by bringing this issue to the attention of Parliament and bringing the Minister to this Chamber to answer on what is a national crisis.

This is not a few people in one part of the country experiencing a particular local difficulty. I am pleased that this Minister is here, because he will know from all his experience in his other roles that it is a huge problem that requires Government and ministerial action all the time. What I want to say to the Minister is this. He is a Minister of the Crown, a representative of the Government. He will be speaking for the people in response to my hon. Friend, who spoke for her constituents but also the country, I think. We have to do better. We come here as parliamentarians, and here we are in this beautiful building, but just half a mile or a few hundred metres away, young people have been stabbed. Go to any of our constituencies and that will be the case. The report I read that caused me to come here today—I will refer to it in a minute—shows that every single area of the country, across the United Kingdom, is impacted by slavery, trafficking, county lines and organised crime, which are an enemy within. I know that the Minister will take this point. He has the power to demand action from the system, whether that is the police, local authorities, the devolved Administrations or, indeed, all of us: yes, write reports, and yes, discuss what we are going to do, but let us get on top of this.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Merseyside Police tell me that community intelligence from the ground is integral to fighting back on this, but we need to look at the cuts in the number of police officers—we have lost 1,000 police officers across Merseyside. Unless we tackle the problem of policing, we cannot solve this problem.

[Vernon Coaker]

I agree. I am a Labour politician, and the cuts in policing and to local authorities have consequences, which we all refer to. The Minister has to accept responsibility for that, but however many police we have, however many things are going on and however many resources are put into local authorities, there has to be a Government drive to push them into tackling this issue as a major priority.

What caused me to attend the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham was a National Crime Agency report published a few months ago. It talks about an intelligence gap—we do not know what we need to know. I asked a parliamentary question, and the Minister’s colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, said that the Government did not know. They thought there were many thousands of people involved, and there was an intelligence gap. That was just a few weeks ago. That report said nine or 10 months ago that there was an intelligence gap, and the parliamentary answer two or three weeks ago said that there was an intelligence gap. That is not good enough, and the system will not change unless the Minister gets civil servants and other people in, and demands that something be done. Otherwise, in the Minister’s constituency, my constituency and, indeed, all our constituencies, in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England and in all the regions, these incidents will continue and we will have to come to this Chamber again in a few months saying how appalling it is that young people have died on our streets as a result of their involvement in organised crime and their involvement in county lines. We do not even have the data, yet we see on our streets what is happening.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is speaking with great passion. He strongly made the point that this is a phenomenon that is affecting the whole country. I completely agree with him. A young man was dragged out of his car, stabbed to death and left to die in a garden only a hundred metres away from my home in Cardiff, just a few weeks ago. That comes on top of many other attacks. This problem is happening across the country and we simply do not—as he says—have the intelligence needed.

[Vernon Coaker]

I quite agree. To be frank, that is what has driven me to come here. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham described eloquently many of the challenges and the impact that has had on her constituency. I want to feel, as a Member of Parliament—in this democracy of ours—that the system somehow feels the emotion that she portrayed. I hope that the Minister, as a human being, will also feel it.

Why does the system not respond? People have different ideas. The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) has particular views on drugs policy. That requires discussion. What is the most effective way of gathering intelligence? Why is it—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham says—that in all our constituencies young people cannot even get a basketball, a football, a kit or somewhere to go and play? We cannot even do that. We talk about diversion, we write a report and the next thing we know there is a 200-page document on the importance of children’s services and local authority provision to ensure that young people are not attracted to crime, because there are people working with them on the street. Goodness me! We don’t need a—I nearly swore there, Mr Evans. I will leave it at that. We do not need a report, do we? We must be able to do better on data and all of these things.

The Minister has a good briefing from the civil service. He has a speech prepared, and he will try to answer the questions as best he can. However, I want to know when we are going to be able to see, in each of our areas, that concerted and co-ordinated effort, in youth provision, diversion and dealing with these organised criminals. That is the main point I wanted to make.

Let me say this to the Minister, too. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 contains a provision that means that if children become involved in criminality as a result of coercion—through being duped, violence, threats or those sorts of things—they are seen as victims, not criminals. Many of these young people are victims—they are not criminals. I am not saying that we cannot hold people to account. I am not saying that saying sorry for murder is fine—do not misunderstand me. I am saying that many of these young people, who are very young, are exploited, frightened and terrified into doing some of the things that they do. It is about time that the people who are terrified are the organised criminals who are exploiting these young people. People are trying to help and work with the police, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said, and I am sick and tired of criminals taking it upon themselves to terrify a community. It is not good enough.

I appeal to the Minister, when he goes back to his office, to call everybody in and say, “We have had one of the most serious debates that I have attended in recent years”—organised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham—“and as a personal mission, I will ensure that instead of writing a report, the system gets on with doing something about this national crisis.”

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I have visited Prevent programmes and I am aware that good work is being done, but the figure that 95% of deradicalisation programmes are not effective should not be put to one side. We have to address it and we have to address whether there is any connection at all with the fact that Prevent is a tainted brand among the members of some communities.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a fair point. I think we need some sort of Prevent strategy, so I accept the need to review it. Does the fact that over 6,000 individuals were referred through the Prevent strategy, over half of whom were under 20, show how careful we need to be in pursuing this policy, even if it is the right policy for the Government to have?

[Ms Abbott]

I accept the need for a programme that does what Prevent purports to do, but there is a danger. If we do not review the activities of Prevent, it may prove counterproductive in the very communities we want to work with. As for the question of local authorities becoming referral agents, at least the police have had some training in this matter, whatever we think of the programme, but local authorities have no expertise in counter-terrorism. The danger is that pointless referrals and what seems, I am afraid, to be useless deradicalisation counselling will snowball.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

No. I am saying that we would properly resource the police to be able to do their job, unlike the Conservative party. In reducing the police, as the Conservatives have done, to nothing more than a flashing blue light that only arrives when the absolute worst has happened, not only have they destroyed the police’s ability to prevent crime from happening in the first place; they have rolled back all the progress of the previous generation in building trust with the police in the hardest-to-reach communities. That is the danger of the loss of community officers from rural police forces.

The devastating assault on the strength of our police service as a result of decisions taken by the Conservatives has undermined the fundamental foundations on which policing in this country has been based. Chief among these is the notion that every community matters and every community deserves a police service that is able to respond to the challenges that it deems important. Although the challenges and risks for each community may vary, each is deserving of a community police service, and the priorities of local communities are of equal merit.

The independent inspectorate of constabulary laid bare the breathtaking pressure that the police are now under thanks to the financial constraints imposed on them by the Government and by rising demand. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary said that

“policing is under significant stress. On occasions, that stress stretches some forces to such an extent that they risk being unable to keep people safe in some very important areas of policing.”

Not only have we lost more than 21,000 police officers; thousands of emergency calls are waiting in queues with not enough officers to respond. Some victims facing an emergency get no response at all. The police have yet to assess risk posed by more than 3,000 individuals on the sex offenders register. We do not know whether those individuals are a threat to the public. There is a shortage of more than 5,000 detectives, as unsolved crime rose to 2.1 million crimes last year.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I do not want my hon. Friend to move on from this incredibly important point. It is not only the cuts to resources and the loss of police stations that are important issues that have had a terrible and adverse impact on rural crime; she is also absolutely right to point out the changing nature of the demands made on policing, including trafficking, modern slavery and some of the sex offenders to which she refers. That makes it even more important that police forces across the country are properly resourced.

[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.

Serious Violence Strategy

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I have sat here throughout the afternoon listening to many people, and I look forward to the contributions that are to come. We have heard descriptions of what has happened in our country, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) just now. We have heard about children and young people being murdered on the streets. We have heard of county lines and of the horror they bring. We have heard of the desperation in communities about what can be done about that.

As someone said at the beginning of the debate, why are we debating this only now, perhaps months after we should have been debating it? Why has not the House—all of us, including me—been roaring about this for months? My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is an honourable exception, as are one or two other Members, but why has this House not been at the heart of the nation?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has been speaking up about the black community and about some of these issues for years, but why have we, as a collective, not been roaring about it? A massive 67 people have been murdered in London this year. That is an unbelievable figure. Imagine if the figure were aggregated and spread across the country—astonishing.

Serious violence is rising everywhere. It is not just about policing, but policing is part of it; it is about all of these things. Of course everyone cares, but this is a national emergency. This is a crisis for our country. If this were happening in any other context, there would be emergency statements by the Prime Minister and calls from both sides of the House to do something about it. The county lines are a relatively new phenomenon, and who knows how many children they affect? Children in our country, some as young as 10 or 11, are being exploited by criminal gangs to move drugs. I do not know what law it will take or what should be done, but I do know that that is totally and utterly unacceptable to every single Member of this House of Commons.

I know the Minister wants to do all she can, and I know the Government want to do all they can, but I honestly believe that we all have to wake up. We all have to say this really cannot continue. After this debate, people out there expect to be able to see something being done. Early intervention, schooling and parenting matter, and all of that is right, but what are we going to do now?

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) talked about the long summer evenings. A young person was stabbed to death in Islington at 6.30 pm last night. It was not down some murky alleyway at 1 o’clock in the morning; it was on the streets of Islington in front of people going about their everyday business. This cannot be acceptable, and it cannot be right.

I passionately argue for us not only to debate the issue and not only to show to the people out there who might be watching that we care—I think everybody does care—but to show that we get it and that we understand it. We must tell the mothers, the families and the communities across this country who are crying that we will stand with them and do something about it.

I was a Home Office Minister when we were faced with some of these problems before and it is a sterile argument. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has argued about police numbers. She has not said that that is the only solution—nobody on either side of the House has said it is the only solution. Of course it is also about youth services. The best people to get involved are the reformed gang members. Get the people in who understand what is going on. Get them in to talk about it—once they have been subject to the law, I hasten to add.

I want to make two more points. This is from the Government’s own evidence. We can see this in the documentation that the Government have published in their serious violence strategy. It totally vindicates what my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has said: targeted stop-and-search is absolutely a part of what we should do, but there is no evidence, even from the Government in their serious violence strategy, that blanket stop-and-search makes any difference. It is in the document the Government have published. What is crucial, it says—I know this as a teacher who dealt with fairly minor instances—is that there is certainty of a consequence. The strategy states:

“We also know that the certainty of punishment is likely to have a greater impact than its severity.”

That is the Government’s own evidence. People have to know that they cannot just act with impunity—

[Lyn Brown]

Because they are going to get caught.

[Vernon Coaker]

Exactly. They have to know they will get caught and be held responsible for what they have done, be it carrying a knife, smashing a window, swearing at somebody or acting in a racist way. If they do not know they will get caught, it is like a kid at school, or your own son or daughter: they will mess you about, but in a much more serious way. So we need certainty of punishment. The Minister has to get hold of the Ministry of Justice, or whoever is responsible, and say, “Get it sorted out. We are the Government.” We are the Parliament. If we cannot sort it out, who is going to sort it out?

We have heard the argument about police numbers. Of course police numbers are not the only reason for this situation, but policing makes a big difference and police numbers make a big difference. It is obvious. Do not accept what my colleagues have been saying; the Government’s own serious violence strategy says exactly that. It says the fall in police numbers is partly a driver—not the only driver, as I totally accept—for the rise in serious violence.

I will finish with this in order to keep to the 10-minute limit. I wish to make one plea to the Minister. This is what I want to happen in the short term. The longer term will sort itself out, but the communities I represent in Nottinghamshire—in Nottingham and around there—and those represented by other Members need something to hold on to now. So I say to the Minister: go to the Treasury and demand, to deal with a national emergency, a pot of money that will allow hotspots to be identified across the country, where police resources can be targeted. That is what works, according to what the Government themselves say: putting money into hotspot areas, so that the police can increase their resources, target those resources and work with youth services and with the community, brings down crime. Crucially, again according to the Government’s own evidence, not only does it bring down crime—it does not result in a displacement of crime from one area to another. Would that not be a price worth paying, Minister? Would that bill not be worth the Government’s picking up? We are talking about a bill of tens of millions of pounds to give to the hotspot areas in London and around the rest of the country where we know the majority of these offences occur. What a statement it would be to those communities to say to them, “We are going to provide some additional resources for the police you need, and to support the youth services in the community alongside them, in order to target what we now accept is a national emergency and a national crisis.”

Policing

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I could not agree more. One of the great reforms that we have made in policing is to make sure that there is much more local accountability on the performance of the police. I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming precept flexibility. She is quite right. Matthew Ellis and other police and crime commissioners have been very vocal in pressing for this because they want that flexibility in order to be able to deliver on their crime plans.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

What universe is the Minister living in? We have seen nearly 40% of police stations cut over the past seven years, thousands upon thousands of police officers cut, police community support officers cut, and police staff cut, and now we see a rise in violent crime. He refuses to acknowledge in his statement that it is proposed that police forces get the same cash from the centre as in 2017-18—a real-terms cut. That is what is going to happen to police forces like my own in Nottinghamshire and those up and down the country.

[Mr Hurd]

The universe I am living in is the real one, where public resources are tight and we have to proceed on an evidenced basis. Labour is giving the same old response: more money, more money—whoops, we ran out of money. It is the same as ever; it never changes. When Labour Members read the detail and understand how this works, they will see that we are proposing a combination of things that will result in an increase of £450 million in our investment in our policing system.

Modern Slavery Act 2015

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

First, may I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? I thank the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) and all the other colleagues who have helped to bring about this Backbench Business debate. I also thank the Minister for her attendance. As Members, we are all united by our desire to do as much as we can to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.

Over 200 years ago, politicians described slavery as an activity

“so enormous and horrible, that there was no parallel to it in the annals of the world.”—[Official Report, 16 March 1807; Vol. 9, c. 133.]

Wilberforce said it was

“our duty to put a stop as speedily as possible to the traffic and sale of our fellow men”.—[Official Report, 17 March 1807; Vol. 9, c. 139.]

Yet, here we are in 2017, and slavery still exists in our country. That horrible reality demands more than our emotional outrage; it demands even more action on our part.

Just 15 years ago, many MPs would have suggested that slavery perhaps did not exist, but thanks to the campaigning of many people in this House, including our former colleagues Anthony Steen and Fiona Mactaggart, much has changed in our approach to the issue. Referrals to the Government’s mechanism for identifying victims—the national referral mechanism—rise year on year, with a 17% increase in 2016. The number of prosecutions also rises annually. We have a Parliament and, to be fair, a Prime Minister with a genuine desire to tackle this issue. We have what was regarded as—and what is, to be fair—a trail-blazing Act, which offers life sentences for traffickers and provides a statutory defence against criminality for victims. We have additional funding going to the police, as well as international aid and safe houses.

The commitment of all of us who work in the House, and indeed of those who work in the Home Office on this issue, cannot be doubted. However—I hope the Minister will accept this in the spirit in which I mean it—it is important that we challenge where we are and look at the things that still need to be done if we are to take this issue forward. Too often, what we say does not happen in practice.

Many traffickers are not getting caught, and, in many circumstances, those who are caught receive minimal sentences. Many slaves are not being freed, and when they are, many are lost, and that includes children, as the Minister knows. So the challenge, first, is for us to try to find the victims, and more potential victims are being identified. Some 3,805 were identified in 2016, and I should point out that 1,227 of them were children—in our country, in 2017.

However, that is still a long way, as the Minister will know from her office’s estimates, from the 10,000 to 13,000 slaves in this country. We have to ask why that is and why victims are not coming forward. First, some of the people who should identify them, such as the first responders, often do not recognise them. Local authorities have a duty to identify, but many do not, and there has been little funding to train their staff. As the 2016 National Crime Agency data show, many local authorities find no one at all.

The second reason is that we often have little to offer victims when they are found. We ask them to stop living under a trafficker’s roof—risking repercussions, threats or violence—and then to enter the system. If adults do consent to enter the system, they face time-limited support, fears as to their immigration status, and long-term uncertainty, even if they are found to be victims at the end of the process. Should we be surprised, therefore, at the small numbers? And if we are not surprised, what are we going to do to increase the numbers?

At its heart, the national referral mechanism relies on traumatised people, who have often known only betrayal, immediately agreeing to go into a Government system. If they do not, they have to fend for themselves. A small minority may be supported by non-governmental organisations, but the rest receive no support. One NGO outside the national referral system found that three fifths of survivors will go into the national referral mechanism if they are given a preliminary period of support of, say, six weeks. Will the Minister therefore recognise that we need to do more to ensure that victims feel safe and secure entering the national referral mechanism, and what does she propose to do?

However, there are other problems. The statutory national referral mechanism recovery and reflection period of support is 45 days, but that is not adequate. Frequent delays mean that, on average, the process is actually 95 days. It can take longer than that just to access legal or health support. Safe, suitable accommodation is not a given. There is no minimum standard. Section 50 of the Modern Slavery Act provides powers to introduce regulations and support, but those powers have not yet been implemented. Entire families could be housed in one room, sometimes hours away from any of the services they need. There is not enough specialist accommodation, and not just for those with children. Traffickers often target those with learning difficulties or addiction issues, and yet our services for survivors oddly do not. Will the Minister give us her thoughts about extending the amount of safe house provision for those with specialist needs? Would she consider introducing care standards along the lines of recommendations published by the Human Trafficking Foundation and supported by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner to guarantee that survivors receive high-quality support? The lack of support is a real challenge for the system.

The Minister will know that the UK has no data on what happens to victims beyond the 45-day period, and no system to ensure that survivors do not fall back into exploitation. We spend £10 million each year on providing short-term support, only to end the support once the decision is made on whether the person was actually trafficked. The Modern Slavery Act, unlike other Acts, does not explicitly place a duty on the state to provide support or state the victim’s entitlements. Rather, section 49 says that these will be set out in guidance. Can the Minister say when that guidance is set to be published?

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend may know that this is a very important issue for the Co-operative party. Is it not the case that people who have been entrapped into slavery do not stop being victims at the point when that has been identified but find that it can take many years to recover and rebuild their lives?

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that absolutely crucial issue. Often at the end of the statutory 45-day period of reflection, there is a period of further support that people may be given, but the evidence shows that the vast majority of people who enter into that fall back into exploitation or are re-trafficked. Something needs to be done to deal with this.

The police say that they have often referred the same individual into the national referral mechanism multiple times.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

With regard to tracing perpetrators, and indeed achieving all our anti-slavery aims, throughout the UK, including in Scotland, how will these processes continue to function effectively—or will they function effectively at all—once we have left the EU, given that that is likely to mean that we will also have left intelligence-sharing agencies such as Europol and Eurojust?

[Vernon Coaker]

I very much agree that there will be real challenges for the system in leaving Europol, Eurojust, and the other systems involved. As the debate progresses, we will have to ensure that if we do leave the European Union, as the hon. Lady says, we look to see how we replicate those systems within whatever deal is done. That is crucial for these victims. I totally agree with her point.

We have heard that each time survivors have left safe houses, they were made destitute again and targeted by traffickers. How destructive and destroying that is for the police, but also life-destroying for those survivors. We have to accept that the short-term system of support fails us all and we all need to look—the police, Government, all of us—at what more we do for victims. A refugee granted asylum receives five years of leave to remain in the United Kingdom. Surely if a person has been recognised as being enslaved, that should entitle them to some sort of similar provision, if not for five years.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing such an important issue to the House. He is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that our domestic justice system—particularly the UK justice system—is not set up to deal with these matters, and that the burden of proof is so high for a conviction that very often the person goes free? Leave to remain is dependent on a conviction when the two things should be absolutely separate.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is absolutely crucial. Often the victim is placed in an immigration situation where they are regarded as a victim of trafficking and yet have no certainty about their status in the UK. I know that the Minister is looking at that, but it is a real problem in the way that the system operates at the moment, as the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) points out.

The Work and Pensions Committee has made recommendations along these lines. Lord McColl’s private Member’s Bill, currently in the Lords, does the same. We cannot continue to lose so many survivors, many of them going back to the same traffickers. As Wilberforce himself said:

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.”

It is for us, as legislators, to say, “What are we actually going to do about this?” Survivors need time and assistance.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

One of the critical issues is inspection and enforcement within the labour market. Does my hon. Friend agree that resourcing that is crucial? A recent report by Focus on Labour Exploitation, a charity of which I am a trustee, detailed how far we are lagging behind other European countries in International Labour Organisation-recommended levels of resourcing. Is he concerned that we have only 0.4 inspectors per 10,000 workers while Poland has twice as many and Norway over three times as many, and that we allocate just £7.69 per worker for enforcement while, closer to home, Ireland spends twice as much? Does he think that the Minister needs to address this issue in her response?

[Vernon Coaker]

My hon. Friend puts the point very well. There is a need to look at the whole area of labour force enforcement. The co-operation between the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the Home Office and so on in sharing data and information is important.

The Minister may want to consider an additional point about awareness. Only last week there was a case in the area of my local authority, Gedling Borough Council. The case is in the public domain. Just outside my constituency, people found a victim of labour exploitation working on their farm, Hammond farm. They were found by a person being made aware by a chance remark that caused them to question what was happening. Part of this is about enforcement but it is also about trying to raise awareness so that people may question what is happening and try to report it to the appropriate authorities. We might want to consider how we do that.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

rose—

[Vernon Coaker]

I will give way, but before I do, let me say that I have been in this House a long time, and we give way a lot and that is fine—I do not mind doing it—but Members cannot have it both ways if I then speak for a long time.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I might be able to help everybody. I am sure that you want to finish within 15 minutes—

[Vernon Coaker]

From when?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

From when you started. The benefit of that is that I will be putting on a time limit of seven minutes and I will not have to reduce it to six—I do not want to do that. Are you sure you want to intervene, Mr Chalk?

[Alex Chalk]

If I may. As somebody who has prosecuted offences of servitude in the past, I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the passion that he is showing regarding this horrible offence which robs people of their dignity. Raising awareness is vital. Will he join me in paying tribute to the Salvation Army in Cheltenham, who last week held an event on this? We need to get the message out to people that everyone needs to be on their guard.

[Vernon Coaker]

If you will nod at me, Mr Deputy Speaker, when I need to start thinking about finishing, that would be good.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Okay.

[Vernon Coaker]

Thank you.

On the serious point that the hon. Gentleman has raised, of course I pay tribute to people like that in Cheltenham. I also pay tribute to all hon. Members of this House, who would, I know, wish to draw this heinous crime to the attention of the authorities in their areas to try to combat it.

Survivors need time and assistance to access justice but they also need access to compensation—something enshrined and recognised as critical by the Modern Slavery Act—because surely we do not want to make crime pay. Between 2004 and 2014, 211 persons were convicted of human trafficking and slavery, but according to the figures I have, only eight compensation orders were made for those crimes, amounting in total to £70,000. The Minister may correct me if, as I hope, I am wrong, but we do need to look at the whole question of compensation for victims. Where the courts order traffickers to pay, most do not pay up, having moved their assets abroad. That is something else we need to look at, and I would be grateful if the Minister could deal with it in her response.

Jean Simester, a tireless campaigner whom I met in Speaker’s House—as did the Minister—when she won an award from the Human Trafficking Foundation, provides a powerful example of how hard it is for survivors to access justice and support. Her son, Darrell, was enslaved by a Traveller family and worked day and night over 13 years with no pay. The police refused to recognise that her son might be at risk, so in the end he was found and rescued by his own family. Yet four years after being rescued, Darrell has still not had a penny of compensation, nor has he received the sort of support that we might expect.

I suggest to the Minister that while the Act focuses on criminal justice without prioritising support, we will not get the level of prosecutions, let alone convictions, that we would want. Broadly, prosecution and conviction rates are rising, but they remain far too low. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, 295 human trafficking prosecutions were completed in 2016-17, but the number of convictions actually fell, from 192 in 2015-16 to 181 in 2016-17. The police say that often the reason why cases fail in the courts is that many of the victims they uncover are unable to find accommodation or get access to benefits, so many go missing before they go into the national referral mechanism.

The police face many challenges, but this week’s report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary says that many victims of modern slavery receive a wholly inadequate service from police, and describes a host of concerns. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), and the Home Secretary have commented on the report, but it was an HMIC report: an independent inspector seriously criticised the way the police dealt with modern slavery. The criticisms included a lack of focus on victims and a tendency to refer those without legal status to immigration services—the point made by the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell)—and concern was expressed about the quality of investigation, with investigations being closed prematurely. The result, according to HMIC, was that we are

“leaving victims unprotected while offenders are not brought to justice”.

I will make a couple of further remarks before concluding, as I think you are encouraging me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have not talked about children, yet we are seeing large numbers of children brought into the care of the state as a result of trafficking or suspicions of trafficking. As a recent report showed, many of those children abscond, leave or are taken away. It cannot be acceptable that in our country in 2017, we cannot protect children who are brought into the care of the state. It cannot be right. We need to understand and consider what more can be done.

It is important that we review the Act and consider both the sections that are yet to be implemented and what more needs to be done. In 2006, I was a Home Office Minister responsible for this area of work, and I had much of the responsibility for dealing with modern slavery for four years between 2006 and 2017. When I challenge the Government, it is a challenge to all of us. It is a challenge to what I did. It is a challenge to every one of us, to every local authority and to every police force. We have to challenge ourselves to do better. It is not acceptable that modern slavery still exists. It is a blight on the conscience of this nation. Although we have done a lot, there is so much more to do. Those who are enslaved deserve our support and our help.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Before I call the next speaker, let me say what a pleasure it is to see Anthony Steen in the Lower Gallery for this important debate.

There is a seven-minute limit on speeches from now on. I call Helen Grant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank everyone who has taken the time to contribute to this massively important debate from across the country. I also welcome the Minister’s comments and the reforms she has announced—I think I have had a greater impact as co-chair of the all-party group than I had as policing Minister. [Laughter.] The serious point is that the changes she announced to the NRM, particularly around the extension of the period for which support will be available, are very important. Other extremely important changes are those around aligning the living costs available to victims vis-á-vis people in the asylum system and around awareness raising, particularly with respect to first responders.

There are other things, of course, that arose in the debate that we will need to discuss, but for now I just want to thank the Minister for her response and to say to her that the all-party group will continue to challenge the Government, not because we wish to be underhand, but because it is only by challenge that we can address what we all agree is a heinous crime. As we speak, there are still unknown thousands of children, women and men in sexual or labour exploitation. It is 2017, not 200 years ago during the abolition debate. We need to do more. The Minister has made some welcome comments today, and the House is united in doing all it can to stamp out this modern scourge.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Immigration Act 2016: Section 67

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend’s excellent point highlights why it is so important for us to continue to do that work in the region. We should be proud of the time, effort and money being spent out there and of the work of the charities as well as the Government in making sure that we do everything we can to help people in the region and deal with the challenges at source. In that way, we can prevent people not only from taking the chance to come to places that are not appropriate for them but from making that treacherous journey and giving profit to human traffickers in the first place.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that I am to be an unpaid director of the Human Trafficking Foundation; that will appear shortly in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

What would the Minister say to Tory-controlled Nottinghamshire County Council, which on Monday suspended support for unaccompanied children despite having places available? One of the senior councillors said that it was because the children come here of their own volition. Is that not simply a disgrace? Is it not also a disgrace that they have turned around and blamed the Government? Is it not about time that the Minister got his act together with his Tory colleagues and stopped unaccompanied children fleeing war and persecution taking the consequences of this disastrous Government policy?

[Brandon Lewis]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the role that he is about to take up, and I look forward to working with him to do something about what we agree on: driving out human trafficking completely.

I am pleased that a Conservative authority took control of Nottinghamshire County Council a few weeks ago in local elections. I learned many years ago at this Dispatch Box to make sure that I understood the full details and both sides of any particular case before I comment on it. I will look into what the hon. Gentleman said and talk to Nottinghamshire County Council before I comment any further.