Knife Crime

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question. I understand there are reports of a stabbing in Glasgow last night, and I am sure the condolences of the House are with the families and those concerned.

We are determined to act on the public health multi-agency approach. It was in the strategy published a year ago, and we are due to consult very soon on whether we should put into law that relevant agencies have the duty to collaborate and work together on this. One listens to doctors working in A&E departments talking about the data they can gather and provide to the police, which will then help the police target particular houses on streets in huge cities; precision policing is what it is called in New York and Chicago and places overseas. This sort of data can really help to protect those who may be victims, but also frankly help go after those who may be perpetrators and the gang leaders we are all determined to crack down on.

I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her support on this. We talk a great deal about the Glasgow model, and I for one am very pleased to be learning from it, and also from the experiences in Wales, where great work is being done on adverse childhood experiences.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

A national newspaper this week featured a smirking criminal outside court having been given a suspended sentence for a second knife offence. Will this Minister, whose tenacity is matched by her talent, disregard those who are blinded by the soft soap of self-righteousness and see what in the eyes of those living on the frontline of crime is as clear as crystal: that more of the thugs and gangsters who, through their criminality, punish the innocent, should be stopped, searched, charged and locked up for as long as possible?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words, and I am reminded of the many comments made about him in celebration of his recent knighthood. He makes an important point about sentencing. Of course, it is the judiciary who decide the sentences they impose on defendants as they appear before them in court, but we really must emphasise the importance of the public message on this for local communities living in the sorts of circumstances outlined by the shadow Home Secretary, where people fear for their sons and daughters. That is why we have introduced mandatory minimum sentences for those caught in possession of a knife on more than one occasion. We have asked judges to apply a minimum of six months’ imprisonment to such people to send out that very clear message that holding a knife is not acceptable, is not normal, and if you hold a knife in a public place not only do you put other people at risk, you put yourself at risk as well.

Ending Exploitation in Supermarket Supply Chains

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing the agreement of the Backbench Business Committee to hold this debate. We can all agree that it has been valuable and has sent out clear messages to the businesses and people involved in increasingly complex international supply chains about the expectations not just of the House, but of the public at large. Although the hon. Member for Cardiff East said—[Interruption.] Forgive me, I meant the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris)—I am causing all sorts of trouble in Wales, sorry. My shadow number was right to say that what we have lacked in number we have more than made up for in quality and the range of issues raised across this debate. I hope Members will excuse me if I do not manage to answer all their points, but I hope to tackle a great many of them.

We are all agreed that modern slavery is an invidious and destructive crime that affects some of the most vulnerable people in society. This Government are determined to end this injustice and eliminate this exploitation in our communities and in the global economy. Since the passing of the landmark Modern Slavery Act 2015, we have seen more convictions and arrests every year and increased specialist support for victims. There are currently more than 950 live investigations into accusations of modern slavery, and the Government will invest at least £61 million this year alone into work to end modern slavery in the United Kingdom and abroad.

The quality of today’s speakers will become clear as I attempt to answer many of their excellent points. The hon. Member for Bristol East set out the complexity of international supply chains, and I know that she and others support the Prime Minister’s call at the United Nations last year for us to end slavery by 2030. It is an ambitious target to set ourselves, but the Prime Minister has clearly identified a will within the international community to do that. More than 80 countries have signed up to the call for action, and a great deal of work is flowing from that effort.

The hon. Member for Bristol East also mentioned seafood from Thailand, and I am pleased that she and other Members took the opportunity to educate and inform the wider public as to some of the conditions that we are learning of when it comes to how seafood is extracted from our seas. In fairness, some UK supermarkets, including Tesco and Morrisons, are members of the Seafood Task Force, an industry-led coalition of retailers, Governments and NGOs set up to address the human rights abuses and seafood supply chains that the hon. Lady so clearly identified in her speech. If she will bear with me, I will deal with her other points later.

Moving on with great excitement to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), my Lincolnshire colleague and dear friend in the House reflected in his usual stylish way on the changes to the high street during his “short” lifetime. He painted a picture of the high streets in our county as they were only a few years ago and then the differences that we now face, describing with chilling accuracy the business conditions that many of his and my farmers in Lincolnshire face at the hands of large supermarkets. He made particular reference to delayed payments. Since April last year, all large UK businesses have had a duty to report publicly on their payment policies, practices and performance, because the Government recognise the helpfulness of transparency in driving change. If he or any other Member is aware of supermarkets that are not playing their part, I ask them to let me and the relevant Ministers know, so that we can ask why they are not doing what they are obliged to do.

My right hon. Friend and other Members also mentioned the proposed merger of Sainsbury’s and Asda. The Competition and Markets Authority is investigating independently, but I am pleased to note that the Select Committees on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrote a joint letter in early May to the CMA raising concerns about the impact that the merger would have on the grocery supply chain and asking for details on the approach of any investigation. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy also wrote to the CMA in May to stress the importance of considering the possible impact on the supply chain, among other competition-related issues.

[Mr John Hayes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her complimentary remarks, which were delivered with her usual style. Will she also consider making the groceries code statutory? The code is voluntary and is largely ignored. In my judgment, a statutory code would protect suppliers, with all the beneficial effects that that would have right down the supply chain.

[Victoria Atkins]

I hesitate to take responsibility for all the work of Government, as I fear that that is a matter for BEIS, but I will ask the relevant Minister to write to my right hon. Friend. Having listened to his speech carefully, I absolutely understand why he asked that question.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and the hon. Member for Swansea East both raised the important issue of women in supply chains, which I obviously take an extra interest in given my responsibilities as Minister for Women. Women and girls are often among the most vulnerable people working in global supply chains. They are more likely to be subject to sexual, mental and physical abuse, both within the workplace and while travelling to and from workplaces, and sadly they are regularly paid lower wages than their male counterparts. The Department for International Development is working to tackle the issue with its flagship initiative, the Work and Opportunities for Women programme. I know that acronyms are not allowed in the MOD, but the DFID acronym for that is WOW, and the programme will collaborate with British and global businesses, providing access to the latest expertise on women’s economic empowerment to improve outcomes for women and enable them to build more resilient, sustainable and productive supply chains.

Turning to transparency in supply chains, it is an uncomfortable truth that forced labour exists in the supply chains of products on our supermarket shelves, which is simply unacceptable. I welcome Oxfam’s research, which shines a light on the suffering of workers in supermarket supply chains. Agriculture and fishing is a particularly high-risk sector that is estimated to account for 12% of forced labour globally. Supermarkets and businesses in food supply chains clearly need to do more, but the truth is that no sector is immune from the risks of modern slavery. Almost all businesses will face the risk of modern slavery somewhere in their supply chains, which is why the world-leading transparency in supply chains provision in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires large businesses in the UK to publish an annual modern slavery statement.

Thousands of businesses are stepping up to the challenge and have published statements detailing the action they are taking to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains. Many are demonstrating their commitment by partnering with experts, changing their purchasing priorities and reporting transparently about what they have done. Companies such as the clothing company ASOS and the Co-op are leading the way in being open and transparent about where they have identified modern slavery risks and what actions they have taken to put them right and prevent the problem from happening in the future. For example, the Co-op’s modern slavery statement disclosed that it had identified a case of modern slavery on a supplier’s farm in Nottinghamshire. As a result of Co-op working closely with its supplier, the police, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the Salvation Army, the victim was safeguarded and the perpetrator jailed for eight years.

I am also pleased to see that more and more companies, including Marks & Spencer, Unilever and Tesco, are signing up to the employer pays principle and taking steps to ensure that workers in their supply chain do not pay exploitative recruitment fees, which can often lead to debt bondage. Although large companies that meet the relevant turnover threshold are obliged under the Act to issue a statement on their supply chain, we are finding evidence that that is having a trickle-down effect on smaller businesses that do not reach the turnover threshold. It is a positive thing that companies are being required by their larger business partners to meet those standards so that the larger businesses can issue a statement.

I am conscious that, although thousands of businesses are taking their responsibility seriously, too many are still publishing poor-quality statements or are failing to meet their basic legal obligations. Today, the Home Office has begun to write directly to the chief executive officers of all 17,000 UK businesses believed to be within the scope of the Act. We have made it clear what their obligations are and how they can meet them. There are no excuses for non-compliance, and those businesses that continue to flout their legal obligations should understand that they can expect to face far tougher consequences.

Members have rightly said that this is about not just companies publishing statements, but the quality of those statements. Having written to those companies, the Home Office plans to audit the statements at the end of this financial year and to name non-compliant companies after that date. That is a significant development in transparency.

We will also be establishing a transparency in supply chains advisory group, with experts from the modern slavery sector and from the business community, to help inform our approach to tackling slavery in public and private sector supply chains. Later this year, we will be revising the business guidance on modern slavery reporting, and businesses can now register on the modern slavery contacts database for guidance and resources to help them report effectively.

Of course, the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act, chaired by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and a noble baroness, will consider how the transparency provision is working and what measures we can take to ensure it is as effective as it can be. I hope that that shows the Government’s direction of travel on this important issue.

The crucial action for these companies to take is to set meaningful targets, report on them and strive to make year-on-year progress in addressing these risks. We recognise that identifying and addressing modern slavery can be a complex task, which is why we are strengthening the guidance we are giving to businesses. We are also funding projects run by experts, including the Ethical Trading Initiative and Stronger Together, to support UK businesses in training their suppliers and addressing the risks in their global supply chains.

The Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner is an important part of this analysis, and hon. Members have mentioned the commissioner’s independence. As I have said in other debates, I have always found Mr Hyland to be incredibly independent and independent-minded, and I very much enjoy working with him. To reassure the House on this important appointment, we remain absolutely committed to the commissioner’s independence, and we are considering how this role can be further strengthened as part of the modern slavery review.

The Government recognise the importance of labour market enforcement and have continued to strengthen their response to exploitation in the UK labour market. We have created the role of director of labour market enforcement, who is responsible for producing an annual strategy that provides an assessment of the scale and nature of non-compliance in the labour market and sets strategic priorities for the three main enforcement teams in this field: the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and HMRC’s national minimum wage team.

Sir David Metcalf took on the role in January 2017 and published his first full annual labour market enforcement strategy in May 2018. The Government are considering Sir David’s recommendations for the three enforcement bodies and will publish their response shortly.

We have also given the GLAA powers, equivalent to police powers, to investigate serious cases of labour market exploitation across the entire economy in England and Wales. Just last year, the GLAA conducted more than 100 operations, leading to more than 100 arrests for suspected labour market offences across a range of sectors, including construction, hand car washes and hospitality. The GLAA has also done some excellent work in partnership with businesses to raise awareness of the signs of modern slavery and to share good practice within the agricultural, construction and textiles sectors. For example, the GLAA has partnered with Sainsbury’s to deliver training sessions to its suppliers so it can better identify and manage risks in its supply chain.

Just outside my constituency in Lincolnshire, the GLAA has partnered with Boston College, an important college in our local area, to help educate young people not just to spot the signs of modern slavery in and around the fields of Lincolnshire, but to know their rights when it comes to their own careers and jobs. We need to get the message out that young people should not feel they need to accept jobs that pay poorly or in which the conditions are not acceptable. This is part of a programme of education that I hope will be followed up across the country.

Colleagues have rightly mentioned the seasonal agricultural workers pilot, and it is a key objective of that scheme to ensure that migrant workers are adequately protected against modern slavery. The GLAA will license the scheme operators, and the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will closely monitor the scheme to ensure that operators adhere to the stringent requirements we have set to ensure workers’ safety and wellbeing, including paying the national minimum wage as a minimum.

The Government recognise that we have a responsibility to use all the levers we have to tackle this crime. As for any business, there are risks of modern slavery in the goods and services procured by the Government and the public sector. We are already leveraging our buying power and requiring bidders for central Government contracts to certify that they are compliant with the transparency requirement in the Modern Slavery Act. In June, the Cabinet Office announced that the Government’s biggest suppliers will be required to provide data and action plans to address key social issues, including modern slavery. We are stepping up our activity to address modern slavery risks in our own supply chain, and we will be supporting the wider public sector to take action.

Of course, modern slavery is an international, indeed global, issue that requires a global response, which is why the United Kingdom is playing a leading role in tackling modern slavery away from our shores. At last year’s United Nations General Assembly, the Prime Minister launched a global call to action to end modern slavery, and more than 80 countries endorsed that call to action and pledged their support.

Building on that work, at this year’s UN General Assembly, the UK—in partnership with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—launched a set of principles for combating modern slavery in supply chains. The principles set out the steps countries should take to prevent exploitation in both public and private sector supply chains. We are sharing lessons from our world-leading transparency and supply chains legislation with other countries, and Australia has looked to the UK for our experience and is now introducing legislation similar to ours.

We are also strengthening our bilateral relationships to tackle this crime. Those who take an interest in this area will know that, sadly, Albania features highly when it comes to the number of people referred to the national referral mechanism. Last week, I met the Albanian Deputy Minister and committed to an ambitious £2 million package to support victims to rebuild their lives and to deter vulnerable people from falling into the hands of traffickers in Albania. Today, we are launching the second round of our modern slavery innovation fund, which will make £5 million available for new approaches to tackle modern slavery globally, and just yesterday the UK held its day of action for the Amina project, a cross-Europe project to prevent child migrants from becoming child slaves.

Colleagues asked about the draft EU directive on unfair trading practices, and although the UK supports the broad aims of the draft directive, it is important to ensure that the measures in it are proportionate and appropriate for each member state, so we have argued for greater discretion for member states in how they implement the provisions.

I have also been asked about the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and we are proud to have been the first country in the world to produce a national action plan responding to those guiding principles. As for the UN treaty, we are engaging in this process as part of the European Union and we are obviously carefully considering our approach to this proposed legally binding instrument.

To mark Anti-Slavery Day, buildings and businesses across the country will be lit in red tonight to raise awareness of this scourge on society, including buildings in Whitehall, Marble Arch in London, Cardiff City Hall—I apologise to the hon. Member for Swansea East—and the Etihad stadium in Manchester. That will raise awareness and give the message that this problem affects us all and that we should take an interest in this incredibly important issue.

To eradicate this crime from our communities and economy, Government, businesses and society need to work together. We should continue to be ambitious in our expectations and approach. No production line, however far reaching, should ever involve the exploitation of human beings, and we are determined to ensure that the rights of those who grow and produce our food are valued and defended.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I am grateful to all hon. and right hon. Members across the House for their contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) said that this had been a constructive and thoughtful debate—that is sadly too rare in this House—and I agree with him. Colleagues have made considered contributions, and it is clear that there is much common ground between us. The fact is that we all want this violent crime to stop, and the Bill is a tool with which the Government, and I hope Members across the House, are trying to tackle this serious issue.

It is apparent that everyone is committed to tackling violent crime head on, and rightly so. Recorded knife and gun crimes are on the increase, and hon. Members will know the devastating impact that those crimes have on communities across the country, not just in London. Before I go on to deal with the Bill, it is worth reflecting on why the legislation is necessary. From the teenage son stabbed to death outside a shop in Camden and the 15-year-old killed in Romford at the weekend to the man in Liverpool whose arm was severed by a machete in a county lines punishment and the fatal stabbings in Wolverhampton, and Sheffield—all those crimes and many more in every part of the country have left behind them grieving families and devastated communities. I consider meeting the victims and the grieving families of these terrible crimes to be one of the most important parts of my role. It is an essential part of my job, and that is why, when I stand here at the Dispatch Box, I speak not just from my notes but from the heart. It is for those people that I am helping the Government to take this legislation through.

We are clear that this is just a part of our strategy to tackle serious violence. We published the serious violence strategy in April, and its emphasis is on the themes that we have heard so much about today. It is about early intervention, about prevention and about the community drawing together and relying on local partners, as my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) said. It is about us working together and seeing this not just as a law enforcement issue, important though that is, but as a societal issue as well. The measures in the Bill will strengthen the powers available to the police to deal with such crimes. When a family has suffered a terrible crime, they want to feel that the police have the powers they need to bring the offenders to justice. The measures will not solve all crimes involving knives, guns and corrosives, but they are important. We must pursue and prosecute those who commit violent crimes. The Bill gives the police and others the powers they need to do so.

The corrosives measures in the Bill will help to stop young people getting hold of dangerous corrosives and are supported by interested businesses. They build on the voluntary arrangements already in place and will close down the sale of acids to under-18s, both online and offline. The Bill also creates an offence of possession of a corrosive in a public place so that police can take additional action to prevent acid attacks. We know that gang members decant corrosive substances into water bottles to evade detection. This measure gives the police the powers they need.

Other measures will help to stop young people getting hold of knives online. That is a major concern of the communities and charities we have worked with in drawing together the serious violence strategy. We know that such sales have led to knives being used in crime. I have seen some of the knives on sale online. As colleagues on both sides of the House have said, they have no practical use; they are clearly designed to glamorise violence and encourage criminality, and are promoted as such.

[Mr John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is right about the sale on the internet of those weapons, but the internet has other malevolent influences on young people. Several hon. Members raised the issue of social media and its glamorisation of violence. Will she work with others to clamp down on those people who allow those images and messages to be broadcast to vulnerable young people?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, not just for the concise and clear points he made in his contribution but for the poetry that he always brings to our debates.

My hon. Friends the Members for Solihull and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) also made the point about social media. That is why the Home Office serious violence strategy is funding the social media hub pilot, which will give the Metropolitan police the powers they need to work with social media companies to bring those videos down. I have seen drill videos; they are horrific and they need to stop.

The measures on the possession of offensive weapons give the police the powers they need to act when people have flick knives, zombie knives and other offensive weapons that have absolutely no place in our homes.

A number of colleagues mentioned clause 28, which is on high-energy rifles. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at the start of the debate that we will listen to colleagues’ concerns. I reiterate that this is not an attack on rural sports; it is a response to the threat assessment of the National Crime Agency and the police.

Given the strong concerns expressed, I will take a moment to explain how clause 28 came into being. For those who are not familiar with such weapons, they are very large and heavy firearms that can shoot very large distances. One example I have been given is that they can shoot the distance between London Bridge and Trafalgar Square—some 3,500 metres. I can share with the House the fact that there has been a recent increase in seizures at the United Kingdom border of higher-powered weaponry and ordnance. The assessment is that those weapons were destined for the criminal marketplace, and that the criminal marketplace is showing a growing demand for more powerful weaponry.

Serious Violence Strategy

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am constantly asked that question, as the hon. Gentleman will imagine, and I challenge my officials to tell me the answer, because I want to get to the truth and I want to ensure that we are tackling this as effectively as possible.

During the previous spikes in knife crime in the late 2000s and mid-1990s, there were many, many more officers on the street. In addition, there does not appear to be a relationship between the numbers of police officers and the national rise in serious violence. I absolutely understand why hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised this issue.

[Mr John Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling point about the collaboration taking place across Government, and her own work on this is well understood and widely admired. Will she also look at the allocation of police resources and what I described earlier as the police culture? We need policemen who are involved in their communities and who are familiar to and respected by those communities. Such work will build the strength and social solidarity that is essential to tackling the problem.

[Victoria Atkins]

One of the first challenges that the then Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, put to the police was to use warranted officers on the frontline rather than in back-office roles. I am delighted that we have seen police forces rise to the challenge and ensure that more warranted officers are used, as they should be, in frontline policing.

Draft Licensing Act 2003 (Royal Wedding Licensing Hours) Order 2018

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

Monday 30th April 2018 General Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for responding in her usual stylish and thoughtful way. The Government share the hope that the football-related celebrations will not spill over into anything other than good cheer and good will. We take some comfort from the fact that Her Majesty’s 90th birthday coincided with two Euro 2016 matches involving England and Wales and there were no reports on that occasion, or during the extension of licensing hours for the 2014 World cup, of increased disorder as a result of the extensions. We have looked carefully at the responses in the surveys. No evidence was received from the police or other respondents to the consultation demonstrating that there would be any increase in football-related disorder as a result of the extension, but of course our very responsible chief constables, police and crime commissioners and, indeed, all people concerned in the emergency services will be taking that into account. I hope that they have a chance to celebrate, along with the rest of the country.

[Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way before she concludes her remarks?

[Victoria Atkins]

How could I resist!

[Mr Hayes]

I will not comment on that. My hon. Friend is making a compelling case, which is clearly supported on both sides of the Committee. I wonder whether she might explore whether there are other occasions on which this exceptional extension of licensing might prevail. Her Majesty is now a great age, and it seems to me that her birthday might be celebrated each and every year; and there might be occasions—Trafalgar day, for example, and other great national days—for which an extension of licensing, in a modest and considered way, could be taken into account. I am sure that my hon. Friend has the information at her fingertips, but if not, she might write to the members of the Committee.

Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and John Hayes

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

There is no wish to do that on either side of the House. There is general agreement on both sides of the House that the measure must act in the interests of both consumers and businesses. It is certainly in the mutual interest of the travel industry and of those who use it that these protections are in place, which is precisely why Governments of all colours and persuasions have continued to invest in and support ATOL over the years, and it is why I said earlier, before a number of Members entered the Chamber, that there is general cross-party agreement among all contributors to these discussions that it is necessary to reform ATOL to take account of the changing way in which people book their holidays online and in other ways. People plan holidays rather differently from how they once did.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and Lincolnshire neighbour, as a Transport Minister, has been diligent in attending to the concerns of my constituents about the infamous Bull Ring bottleneck in Horncastle, where the A153 and A158 cross. Has he paid the same diligence, care and attention to this Bill, such that he is able to reassure the Committee that the amendment is not to be passed and that we must keep the Bill as it is?