Crime and Policing Bill

Adam Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I am proud to speak in firm support of the Bill. Many of my constituents feel that crime, especially day-to-day antisocial behaviour, has grown exponentially over recent years. It impacts every part of my constituency, from the town centres in Ilkeston and Long Eaton, to villages such as Draycott and suburban estates such as Cotmanhay. The Bill is about making people feel safe, so that Erewash residents from Sawley to Shipley View can live their lives free from the fear of crime.

As our local police forces were gutted by austerity under the previous Government, so-called low-level offences such as antisocial behaviour, shoplifting and even burglary were increasingly ignored and functionally decriminalised by the Conservative party. Shoplifting was functionally decriminalised under the negligence of the previous Government, who set guidelines stating that it should not be dealt with if goods worth less than £200 were stolen. Although major supermarkets and surviving high street chains might be able to stomach that volume, our small businesses cannot. How were those businesses meant to grow, how were investments meant to be made, how were town centres meant to thrive and how were people meant to feel safe when criminals and thieves were given impunity by the previous Government’s shoplifters’ charter? The Bill repeals that thieves’ charter, which will surely come as a relief to business owners and the hard-working, law-abiding majority of constituents in Erewash and across the country.

Knife crime has more than doubled in Derbyshire in the past decade. The recent horrific stabbing and subsequent death of a teenager in my constituency has rightly given rise to a lot of anger in my community—some of which ended up being directed at me, as people asked bluntly, “What are you going to do about this?” That is why I will be very proud to vote for the Bill, which creates a new offence of possession of a bladed item with intent to cause harm. It will give our police the new and stronger powers that they need to seize, keep and destroy knives confiscated from private properties.

Finally, on violence against women and girls, 13,000 stalking and harassment offences were recorded in Derbyshire in 2024—the highest figure in the east midlands —along with more than 3,400 sexual offences. In that time, one of my great friends and constituents reported to police that she had been followed and had sexual abuse shouted at her. That abuse happened in broad daylight and in public, on West Park in Long Eaton. The Government’s mission is to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. If we are to do that, our police will need the measures in the Bill.

If we have now entered the decade of national renewal that the Government promised, yes we need to get the economy growing again, yes we need to get Britain building again, and yes we need to get the NHS back on its feet, but we must also ensure that crime is punished and that the police are given the powers that they need to properly enforce against offenders. We must take back our streets and excise the rot. If we restore social order and respect for our communities, we can fix broken Britain.