Criminal Justice Bill (Fourth sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 14th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Good afternoon. We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. We will now hear oral evidence from Kennedy Talbot KC, barrister at 33 Chancery Lane. For this panel, we have until 2.20 pm.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Sir Graham, I was hoping I might declare an interest at this stage. I am a member of USDAW—the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—as is my wife, and the Committee has a witness from USDAW coming later.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much; that is all recorded. Mr Talbot, may I ask you to introduce yourself?

Kennedy Talbot: Yes. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am a barrister in independent private practice. I am not part of any pressure group; I am not pushing for any particular position. I suppose the only interest that one could say I have and might declare is the fact that at the moment I am not able to be paid out of restrained funds, but if this Bill becomes law, there would be the power for that to happen—whether I would be better off as a result of that I do not know. Apart from that, my only interests are to help the Committee, if I can, to ensure that the Bill operates efficiently and fairly and promotes the orderly dispatch of this business.

[The Chair]

Excellent. Thank you very much. We will start with shadow Minister Alex Norris.

[Alex Norris]

Q43 Thank you, Mr Talbot, for your time and expertise today. Given your admirable record in the proceeds of crime field, I am hoping that you might set out for the Committee what you think of proceeds of crime arrangements at the moment, and then, with particular reference to what is in clause 32, which is an attempt to more tightly define the purpose of confiscation under those arrangements, reflect on your view on that as well.

Kennedy Talbot: Yes. Speaking broadly for the moment and without commenting on the Bill—I do not think the Bill would be a vehicle to make all the changes that might be desirable—the key issue is plainly to investigate and to identify criminal proceeds and then to ensure that they are secure. That is the principal problem: by the time the courts get involved, making orders divesting people of assets, in most cases the assets have long gone. That is if the courts actually are engaged.

As you will probably recall from the report in March by the Public Accounts Committee, looking at the investigation of fraud, something like 41% of crime is fraud, yet it is largely not investigated. Of the 900,000 reports that are made to Action Fraud, only 1% result in any kind of judicial proceeding. That, from the broadest perspective, is where the problem lies—ensuring that fraud and other economic crimes are properly investigated and assets are frozen early. That is the best way to ensure that they are confiscated or forfeited.

[Alex Norris]

Q What do you think about the clause 32 provision to try to tighten up the definition? Will that help to give clarity to the courts about what we are seeking with this legislation?

Kennedy Talbot: I think it may be possible to make amendments to the Bill in two respects to deal with the issue that I have just mentioned. One involves restraint orders. I am sure that the Committee is familiar with the power for the court to make restraint orders preventing people who are suspected of crime, and then charged with crime, from dealing with their assets. At the moment, a statutory proposal in the Bill is that the risk of dissipation factor—such risk needs to be established for an order to be made under case law, not under statute —should be specified. The answer, in my view, is to scrap the risk of dissipation, so that it is not a requirement.

In many cases, what prevents prosecutors from applying for restraint orders is that they feel they cannot meet that test. Normally, that is because the case is brought to them some time after an investigation first started. The defendants are often aware that they are being investigated, and the case law more or less establishes that unless you can show that a defendant is on the point of selling his house or moving £100,000 to the UAE or whatever it may be, you cannot get a restraint order. Scrap the risk of dissipation.

[Alex Norris]

Q You said two amendments. That was one.

Kennedy Talbot: That was one. The other is about receivers. Receivers have always been a very useful tool, in particular with economic crime involving businesses, because they enable the court to appoint a court officer, a receiver—normally an insolvency practitioner—to manage, run and control businesses. That was from the time that a restraint order could be made, so from the very beginning of an investigation. As a result of case law that went to the Supreme Court, however—a 2013 case named for the Eastenders Group—management receivers, as they are called, have dried up. The reason for that is that the Supreme Court held that if the management receiver was wrongly appointed in the first place, the prosecutor had to meet the costs. In that case, it was more than £1 million, which had a chilling effect, so prosecutors simply have not applied for receivers at all.

The amendment would be to make receivers’ costs payable out of central funds. There may be a way to ameliorate the problems that one might have with the Treasury. I do not know whether you know about ARIS, the asset recovery incentivisation scheme, but with that up to half of the recoveries are hypothecated back to the investigating and prosecuting authorities, but they must use them within particular accounting periods. The answer, rather than sending it all back, might be to put a portion into a fund that could be used for those special expenses. That would not cost the Treasury a single penny.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Paddy Lillis, general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers; Paul Gerrard, campaigns, public affairs and board secretariat director for the Co-op Group; and Helen Dickinson OBE, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium. We have until 3.05 pm for this panel. Please could you all introduce yourselves for the record?

Paddy Lillis: I am Paddy Lillis, general secretary of USDAW, the shop workers’ union.

Helen Dickinson: I am Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, the trade body for many retailers in the industry.

Paul Gerrard: I am Paul Gerrard, public affairs director at the Co-op Group, the world’s oldest co-operative society.

[Alex Norris]

Q The panel will not be surprised to hear that I want to ask you questions about violence and abuse against retail workers and retail crime. The Bill does not have very much—or is silent—on the matter. Could you tell us about the scale of the challenge at the moment within your industry?

Helen Dickinson: Thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you today. We are not technical experts on the Bill, but we are happy to talk about the scale of the issue and an amendment that we think could help to address the situation, at least in some instances.

You will hear various bits of data about the impact of violence and abuse on people who work in the retail industry. We compile data. Many businesses, such as the Co-op, have their own data. USDAW has data, as does the charity that looks after many employees who work in retail. All the different sources of data show a significant trend: an uptick in shoplifting, organised crime, and violence and abuse against shop workers and wider retail workers.

For me, there has been a big turning point this year. Businesses such as the Co-op and other frontline convenience stores are often on the receiving end when they ask a customer about age-related sales or something, but it is now many different types of businesses, including clothing, fashion and beauty businesses. It is a much more prevalent issue right across retail, rather than being concentrated on food.

The scale of it is much higher than it was pre-pandemic. The number of incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers has nearly doubled since before the pandemic, from around 450 per day across the country to around 850. I am sure that Paddy and Paul will share some specific statistics from their point of view, but that gives you an idea of the scale. It is an increasingly worrying trend that has a big financial impact on businesses, which we are all paying for in terms of inflation, but most significantly on the people who work in retail, and on customers and their families as well.

Paddy Lillis: Thanks for the invite to the Committee. As part of our Freedom From Fear campaign, we have been surveying our members for 20 years about violence and abuse towards retail staff. The idea that this thing is a victimless crime is far from the truth. Shoplifting has cost £1 billion in the last year—£1 billion for employers for security measures. That is one side of it.

The other side, which I will concentrate on, is the number of incidents of abuse, threats and violence towards retail staff. Do not lose sight of the 3 million retail workers in the UK. They deserve to have the protection of Parliament, the police, the judicial system and ourselves. We have seen an explosion of shoplifting and violence towards staff over the last 12 months. It nearly doubled during the pandemic. The sad part is that these people are working in the community, living in the community and serving the community, and they do not deserve this sort of abuse, but we are seeing an increase. I think 62% of the people we surveyed have been abused—verbally abused. About 56% of them have been threatened and 5% have been assaulted. We had a member who lost his life last August in Andover in a Tesco store, and that is the worst side of it.

We would argue that the Bill is missing a trick here in the sense that it represents an opportunity to include a statutory offence to tackle the violence towards retail staff. It is horrendous when you listen some of the stories, as we have to do every day. It is heartbreaking—from people being spat on, threatened or abused, to being assaulted, having their cars damaged, and being followed at night when leaving their stores. It is just horrendous.

I would say there are three elements to this. We have had the historical issue for many years in terms of drugs and alcohol, with people stealing them. They are probably the most dangerous. On top of that, with the cost of living—I am not condoning this, by the way—people are shoplifting. We have also seen over the last number of years that criminal gangs just see retail as an easy target, because the likelihood of being caught is minimal. If you are caught, the chances are you will probably just get a slap on the wrist. For us, this really is important. We look at the Scottish Bill that came in in 2021. There have been 6,000 additional investigations of retail crime by the police in Scotland, so it does work when there is a specific offence out there.

The other thing I will finish on is this £200 levy, where it is a summary offence—that is, it cannot go to a magistrates court. In reality, the police cannot be bothered—it is not so much that they cannot be bothered, but more because of a resource issue. If they do stop them, it is a fixed penalty notice, and that sends all the wrong signals to the criminal fraternity: “It is probably a fine more than anything else.”

There is an opportunity here, I think, to send a message out from Parliament, from yourselves and from ourselves as employers and trade unions, that this is unacceptable and appalling behaviour, and that we are all on the side of retail workers. Retail workers are in every postcode in the country, and in every constituency in the country, and they do deserve our support.

Paul Gerrard: Thank you for this opportunity. At the Co-op Group, we run 2,500 small-format convenience stores across the country. We have seen a 44% rise in incidents of crime in our stores, a 36% rise in incidents of violence, and a 38% rise in incidents of abuse.

What does that look like? Speaking to some colleagues over the last couple of days, just to get a live sense of that, I heard that a store manager was attacked by a customer “with a knife who went for his throat. Fortunately, the assailant missed my colleague’s throat, but hit him in the collar.” He had to be hospitalised. The individual got a £200 fine. There are two individuals in and around Manchester who are stealing in excess of £180,000-worth of product a year, and by the time they have sold it for a third of the price, they have a pre-tax income of £30,000 each—I am not sure whether they are paying a lot of tax on that. As a former His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs officer, I can guarantee that they are not paying a lot of tax on that. In truth, there is a quite terrifying level of lawlessness out there.

There is another thing worth noting with the current situation. We very much welcome the retail crime action plan, which is a good step forward, but we are a long way away from what it outlines. At present, the police do not turn up to 70% of the incidents that the Co-op reports. We only report serious incidents. We do not report someone nicking a ham sandwich and a can of Coke. We report the serious, prolific offenders, and 70% of the time the police do not turn up. More than that, when we use citizen’s arrest powers to detain the individual offender and call the police to complete the arrest, the police do not turn up on 80% of occasions, which means we have to let them go.

There is desperate need for a reset of society’s view of what happens in shops. If Parliament is going to give responsibility for upholding the law to individual groups—many of these offences are to do with age-related sales—it should give them protection for upholding the laws that it passes.

[Alex Norris]

Q Paddy Lillis talked about the stand-alone offence in Scotland. You were a prominent campaigner for that. What assessment have you made of that, since its inception?

Paul Gerrard: I gave evidence to the Scottish equivalent of this, when Daniel Johnson MSP’s Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Good and Services) (Scotland) Bill was passed. Our sense is that it resulted in the police in Scotland taking incidents far more seriously. It is quite hard to come by data, but the data that I see tells me that for attendance at the scene when we report incidents, Police Scotland is one of the five best forces in the country.

Paddy referenced this: when a report is made of violence in stores in Scotland, the individual is arrested 60% of the time. England and Wales are nowhere close to that; here, it is penny numbers. I do not pretend that this is empirical, but our sense as a business is that the protection of workers Act in Scotland increased the importance of this for the police, and the police have responded. If we could get to the position of 60% of reported violent offences resulting in an arrest, my colleagues would be very grateful, as would Paddy’s members, and all the members of the British Retail Consortium.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Q It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I have spoken with those on the witness panel quite a lot recently. For transparency’s sake, Paul and I have probably had five or maybe even 10 meetings in the last six months. Paddy, Helen and I met just yesterday to discuss this topic, together with the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).

Helen Dickinson: It was like a practice for today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I will certainly continue to work with you all, regardless of the details in the Bill, to get the retail crime action plan fully implemented and bring into force a zero-tolerance approach. I think we all agree that that is necessary, and I will do everything possible to ensure that the police deliver that operationally. Thank you for your work in this area, and I look forward to keeping on working with you.

[Alex Norris]

Q One of our witnesses on Tuesday—it has completely escaped my mind which one—said it was very important that retailers did their part of the job too in ensuring that shops were safe environments to work in and not easy to steal from. I want to give Helen and Paul in particular the right to reply on that, because I thought you might want to.

Helen Dickinson: I agree completely with that comment. The reason why over 90 chief executives signed the letter to the Home Secretary from right across different parts of retail was that they are concerned about the fact that they are doing all they can, but feel that there is nothing more they can do. Paddy mentioned some statistics.

How do I describe it? It has two big impacts: one is financial, on the bottom line, how the profit of companies will be impacted unless they do everything that they can to address what could impact their business; and the second impact is on their biggest asset, which is their people, whether that is in absenteeism, morale or motivation to do their job well. Those two motivating factors, from a business leader point of view, mean something to every single business leader that I talk to. Literally, that is probably the thing that comes up most in the chief executive conversations that I have, because they feel that they have done everything that they can and that they are running out of road in terms of things that they could do.

The Minister asked about facial recognition, and I know that that is being explored by a lot of people. There have been various announcements about body cameras. People pay money into business improvement districts and regional partnerships. We have the Pegasus Project, which is trying to get better co-ordination across different parts of the police, specifically focused on organised gangs. That is being funded by retail businesses. They are not handing it all back and going, “It’s someone else’s problem.”

That is my answer to whoever it was. I am very happy to put them in front of any retail business, and I am sure they will be given lot of reasons. Paul, I do not know if there is anything you want to add.

Paul Gerrard: The Co-op is one of the businesses that is funding Operation Pegasus. Over the past four or five years, we have spent £200 million on security measures in our stores. That is four times the sector average. If you go into some of our stores, you will see state-of-the-art CCTV, body-worn cameras and headsets. We have increased our guarding budget by almost 60% from pre-covid days. We are constantly investing. We have had a problem with kiosks, where people jump behind the kiosk counter, often armed, terrifying colleagues who are still in the kiosk. We have just invested heavily in new kiosks to stop people from doing that.

Helen is absolutely right: the retail sector takes this really seriously. We consider the first responsibility to be ours, which is why we invest as much as we do to keep colleagues and shops safe, but we are getting to the point with some stores in the Co-op estate and across retail where it is increasingly hard to work out how to run a store that keeps colleagues safe and can make a commercial return. That will mean that shops will close, and we all see what happens when shops close: communities face tough times.

I have heard the police express that idea that we are not doing anything. They have had a similar, less-than-polite response from me when they have said it, because it is patently untrue.

Paddy Lillis: It is 21st-century Britain, and we have retail workers with body cams on—it sounds like a war zone. At the time, we are trying to get things right and get people back into the towns and city centres, but we are helpless. It is a societal problem, something we all need to work towards addressing. We must put the support we need behind retail staff and businesses. I have worked with them. Security measures just last year cost £1 billion, with more and more going in, but somewhere along the line we all pay for that. It is a massive problem that has to be addressed.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Q I am interested in the answer that Helen gave to the Minister about why retail workers should be a special case. I wonder if you would speak a little more about that. My understanding is that attacks on teachers, doctors, leisure staff, pub staff or whatever have not increased in particular in recent times, whereas we have seen this tremendous surge not only in organised crime in shops, but in assaults on retail workers.

The reason why the Government—rightly—responded to proposed changes for emergency workers was that we had seen a huge increase in activity: attacks on vehicles, on people, and everything else associated with that. Helen, would you like to talk a little bit more about that, and just clarify that it is also your understanding that it has soared in the retail sector, whereas some of the other categories that the Minister referred to have, in fact, remained relatively static?

Helen Dickinson: I think Paul summed it up. I cannot comment on behalf of other industries, because I am not close to what might be happening. I engage a lot with my peer group across different sectors, and it does not come up in the same way as it does when engaging with my members.

Paddy Lillis: Retail is an easy target for people. It is an easy way to make money, as Paul outlined earlier. In today’s climate, as I said, there are three areas: the cost of living, addiction to alcohol and drugs, and now the criminal gang element. The retailers rightly told me that this is a golden quarter. It is a golden quarter as well for the criminal gangs, because they are in there robbing the shops under the cover of thousands of people shopping every day.

Paul Gerrard: If you were to ask people who have been in retail for decades, nobody would say they have seen anything like this, even during covid. No one has seen this scale of crime and the—often weaponised —violence and abuse that goes with that. It is out of control. We released CCTV footage earlier this summer, and it is like a riot trying to get into some of our stores, because people are intent on stealing and causing violence and abuse. I do not think anyone in retail—Paddy has been in and around retail for much longer than me—has seen it like this before.

Helen Dickinson: Businesses such as the Co-op—in convenience— have often been at the frontline, because there is that proof of age required when somebody is buying alcohol or cigarettes or whatever else it might be. He is seeing that escalation, but there are other sectors that would never have raised this as an issue now bringing it up as the most significant thing impacting their business. One of my members is a beauty business with only one or two staff members in its stores. It has the same organised gang turning up, week in week out, using abuse and violence to basically get the staff to step back so that they can literally just sweep the whole stock. A business like that is potentially going to shut up shop, because it is not worth it in terms of loss. I do not know if we have quite answered your question.

Criminal Justice Bill (Third sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 14th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Okay. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Nick Smart: Good morning, everybody. I am Nick Smart, acting president of the Police Superintendents’ Association. We represent superintendents and chief superintendents in England and Wales; we have approximately 1,500 members nationally.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you for your time and expertise this morning. They are much appreciated.

The nuisance rough sleeping provisions in clauses 51 to 62 are likely to have an impact on police officers and the work that they have to do. Does the association have a view on that, and on its resourcing implications?

Nick Smart: Yes. With the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824, the new measures are welcome. The powers give officers the ability to move people on in certain circumstances, be it rough sleeping or begging. As Mr Stephens from the National Police Chiefs’ Council said, this is a wider societal issue, not necessarily just a police matter. We would encourage the use of these powers in line with our community safety partners to address the issues. We would look at this as a positive step for police officers.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you have concerns that this will be one of those multifactorial societal problems that ends up with an enforcement-type approach, where we ask you to police our way out of what are deeper social challenges?

Nick Smart: A lot of the individuals who end up in this situation are vulnerable; I am sure you have heard evidence of that. Will it address the root causes of rough sleeping and begging? That remains to be seen. We note that with the one-month imprisonment, there is a potential risk of people being arrested subject to notices and then yo-yoing in and out of the criminal justice system, prisons and so on. If they are in prison for a short time, they are not able to access all the help that they may need. Where sleeping and begging also has that harassment or nuisance element, however, that is an appropriate power.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you have a view on the desirability of the provisions relating to the police, particularly clauses 73 and 74 on ethical policing and appeals to police appeals tribunals? Would you add anything to them?

Nick Smart: On the police appeals tribunals, it makes perfect sense to us as an association that where officers need to be dismissed, or it is believed that officers should be dismissed, chief constables have the right to appeal to the tribunal rather than going through the rather litigious and expensive route of judicial review.

We are supportive of the duty of candour and code of ethics. Nobody in policing wants bad cops within the organisation. We are overtly cognisant of the trust and confidence issues in policing and of the legitimacy that we all—the public—seek and desire. We believe that the College of Policing needs to come up with some clear and unambiguous guidance for all police officers. If you were to ask a PC, at 2 am, what “duty of candour” means, I think they might struggle to answer, but if the College of Policing is clear with that guidance and rolls it out in an unambiguous manner that everybody can understand, which I believe it will, we do not have an issue. We support that 100%.

[Alex Norris]

Q Finally, you may have seen from the evidence we took on Tuesday that there is quite a lot of interest in vetting. I think we came out with more solutions, in different ways, than we had perhaps anticipated. Where do you sit on what is an appropriate vetting regime that is practical and that gives confidence to the public about the people who are protecting us?

Nick Smart: The purpose of vetting is to make sure that the right people get into the organisation. There is certainly a reputational risk in having the wrong officers in the organisation; we have seen the damage it can do to trust and confidence in the police service. I believe that the measures that the College of Policing will instigate for licence and vetting units are a positive step to make sure that they adhere to a certain standard.

Having His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary review vetting units as part of its inspections is a sensible way of safeguarding and making sure that they are working effectively. As with any issue, if you want to enhance the vetting it will mean more staff, which will cost more. The current budgets are set, so if you put more people and resources into more robust vetting, which is a sensible idea, something at the other end will have to give, because there is no endless money pit for the police budget.

Yes, we welcome it and we believe that it is the right thing to do. As an observation, an officer is vetted at the time of joining, but you could have repeat vetting at some point during their service, to make sure that they still have the appropriate vetting. Also, when you get promoted to superintendent level, for example, you go to management-level vetting, which is slightly more intrusive. If you are a counter-terrorism officer, you may get some even more enhanced and developed vetting that takes more time and resources. We would welcome more robust vetting, and I think most chief constables would welcome it, but it is a question of resourcing and staffing to make sure that the process is fit for purpose.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)]

Q Can I pick up on the issues around police conduct? Clauses 73 and 74 create both a right and a duty on chief constables: a duty to oversee the duty of candour and the relevant code that will ensure it, and a right to submit an appeal of their own device. Is that consistent with feedback that you have heard from chief constables about how they could better manage their subordinates?

Nick Smart: In terms of the appeals process?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We welcome the three witnesses: Councillor Sue Woolley, Conservative lead at the Local Government Association and Safer and Stronger Communities; Emily Spurrell, a Police and Crime Commissioner and justice portfolio lead; and David Lloyd, a PCC and criminal justice portfolio lead. Can you start by introducing yourselves, please? We will start with David.

David Lloyd: Thanks very much, Sir Robert. Thank you for the courtesy of extending invitations to the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to attend. You realise that PCCs have a strategic role in setting plans and budgets and holding their chief constable to account. We are not operational, and therefore any remarks we will make will be more about strategy—I suppose budgets, specifically—but we are also proudly victims champions. I suppose that is what we have brought to the criminal justice system—there is bias in favour of criminals. I am David Lloyd, and I am the PCC in Hertfordshire.

Emily Spurrell: I am the PCC in Merseyside. To echo what David said, scrutiny and partnership working in particular are some of the areas that we are keen to look at.

Councillor Sue Woolley: I am Councillor Sue Woolley. Today I am representing the Local Government Association. As you have already said, I am a member of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board. As a representative of local government, you will know, and I would suggest, that we are probably the bit of the jam that brings everything together, so that we have the opportunity to work with all those wider partners, including the PCCs, local government and the police force.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you for your time and the distances that you have come to be with us today; it is really valuable to us in our consideration. I will start where you finished, Commissioner Spurrell, on partnership. Can you give me your reflections on community safety partnerships and your experience of them? We can go from left to right as I look at the panel.

Councillor Sue Woolley: The community safety partnerships are absolutely important for partnership working at that local level—I must impress that on you—and provide the opportunity to bring together those other agencies that work particularly in the wider scheme of things. For example, under local government you will have public health, which sits with upper tier authorities; of course, they are responsible for things such as drug and alcohol services. While you may have the sharp end, if you like—the police force and the PCC—working with those who have broken the law, it is then the turn of local government and its wider partners to pick it up and put some restoration into the process.

Emily Spurrell: As I said, I think partnership is a key part of the work we are trying to do. As police and crime commissioners, it is certainly very much in our job description that we bring partners together, and community safety partnerships are a good tool to do that.

They have probably had some challenges since they were first introduced many years ago, particularly around capacity in some areas—partly because of funding and because they do not sit on a statutory footing. In Merseyside, I fund the five CSPs that sit within the five local authorities. I give them funding to try to help them drive some of the really local issues that we see. It is also important that, as PCCs, we try to bring them together at the Merseyside force footprint level, so we can try to join that up. We want to try to get the balance of giving the local CSPs the powers and funding to do some really local issues while ensuring that we do not lose sight of how we get consistency and a joined-up approach at the force level.

In terms of some of the issues that the Criminal Justice Bill talks about—antisocial behaviour, nuisance begging and those kinds of issues—we absolutely need to use the powers of partners. We cannot rely on the police to do that job, for many reasons. The CSPs are the place where we can try to bring those people together and say, “It does not meet a police threshold, but we have other powers that we can use.” That is the value of the CSPs all coming together to do that work.

David Lloyd: Emily is quite right: they are very good idea. I think they are variable. In Hertfordshire I have 10, based on the borough council footprint. Some very much want to work alongside policing. They are a very good idea, because community safety is clearly not just a policing issue; that is the most extreme end of it, but most of it is further upstream. But they are variable, and a lot of it is to do with the funding that they choose to put in or not. It is very easy to spend other people’s money on something; it is far more difficult to spend one’s own money on something. Frankly, that can be an issue, so we need to think about that funding and how it happens.

We also have to think about how they can influence the police and crime plan and how we can influence what they are doing. Even though they are fairly mature organisations, things still do not always join up as much as you might expect, especially if there are different political beliefs and different political leaderships.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you for all those answers. I want to pick up on that final point. Clause 72 gives PCCs the ability to essentially say to the CSP, “This is what you should be prioritising,” and the CSP has to take that on board and, if it is not acceptable, come back in a formal process to say why not. I am not sure whether that is needed. You have talked about culture, mutual trust and realising that local government tackles the same problems as policing. Is the power necessary? As PCCs, is it one that you would expect to exercise? From a local government point of view, Councillor Woolley, would you be impressed if your PCC or Mayor was to exercise it with you?

Councillor Sue Woolley: I couldn’t possibly comment!

David Lloyd: When they were originally brought in under the Labour Government in the ’90s, I think they were missing teeth, if you like. Perhaps there was more accessible funding in those days, but to an extent I think that they do not have the teeth. Clearly, there is now a democratically elected corporation sole: a person who has that very direct role around community—a direct mandate from the public. So being able to sweep up into what the local council is doing would be very helpful, because we need some way of ensuring that, where common persuasion does not work enough, there are some teeth within it.

[Alex Norris]

Q Should that perhaps cut both ways? As you say, the PCC has a democratic mandate. The local authority does as well. It is elected differently, but it is still drawn from the people—of the people. Are you not concerned that it creates a power imbalance, where the PCC can make that mandate, but the other partners cannot?

Emily Spurrell: From my point of view, if the system was working as it should—again, I am reflecting on my own experience in Merseyside—you should all be talking about the same things anyway. When I look at my CSPs in Merseyside, if they are not all talking about serious organised crime, something has gone wrong. They are all talking about it, because it is an issue in all their areas. There will be some really specific issues that I think CSPs need to be able to look at but, generally speaking, if they are not talking about those issues, something else has gone wrong further upstream. It could be helpful to put this in because then, as David says, there is a reminder that you need that connection. The reality is that if they are not really talking about those things, there are bigger issues at play, in terms of why those same priorities are not being picked up.

Councillor Sue Woolley: I think that if at all possible, when you have partners around a table and they are equal partners, that is a conducive way to good practice and working. I am quite sure that works really well in some places. In my own area, that works particularly well. All partners are equal around the table; everybody works together. I am quite sure that in other areas, that bond may not be as strong. Rather than just legislating for something, I would suggest that, if at all possible, there could be something around a duty to work together. You will know the language better than me.

Emily Spurrell: That actually already exists for PCCs. It is within our duty to work in partnership as well.

[Laura Farris]

Q Mr Lloyd, I want to go back to what you were saying at the beginning about your role in relation to the police—in standing up for victims. With the new powers that are extended to chief constables, and particularly the new duty of candour, how do you see the role of PCCs in ensuring that is effective?

David Lloyd: We of course hold the chief constable to account in a variety of ways and in different places. Realising that there is a duty of candour is another part of the armoury, because it is something that we can push back. I know that this was very much part of the post-Hillsborough legacy. Clearly, that whole lack of candour was one of the things that went wrong. We are good at holding the chiefs to account, and it should happen locally. With this extra duty there, it is something that we will need to be reminded about—it is helpful for us to be reminded that there is a duty of candour—but we can then ask those questions as well.

Criminal Justice Bill (Second sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I begin this evidence session by calling Alex Norris for the Opposition.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Good afternoon to both our witnesses; thank you for your time. Rebecca Bryant, you mentioned Resolve’s long-running interest in antisocial behaviour. Could you give us your views on the clauses in the Bill that relate to antisocial behaviour and whether there is anything you would add to them?

Rebecca Bryant: Thank you for the question. First of all, as a membership organisation, the views are of our members. We have spent time talking to them since the Bill was published. Quite a few different views have been put forward by our members and by Resolve ourselves as an organisation. Some of the clauses we agree with, and some of them we do not. I can take you through each particular one.

We absolutely agree with the clause on creating a duty for police and crime commissioners to promote awareness of the antisocial behaviour case review. I am quite happy to elaborate on that. On extending the power to implement dispersal orders to local authorities, our members generally agree that dispersal powers should remain with the police rather than being spread to local authorities, and there are very specific reasons for that. The police are required to enforce any breach of the dispersal order, and really these powers should be seen as a partnership response rather than a sole agency response.

When a dispersal order is being put in place, that needs to be considered by the local authority and with it as a partnership across the board through the community safety partnership. There should be an understanding as well that the police are on the ground and out on patrol 24/7, so are in a much better position to be able to use that power. They also have the skills and knowledge to use it.

That takes me on to extending the time frame for a dispersal order from 48 hours to 72 hours. All our members that we consulted are in favour of the extension of time. Our members are not in favour of extending the public spaces protection orders to the police because local authorities are very skilled in using them—that is where the knowledge lies. Significant expertise and a lot of consultation with the public are required before you put one in place. Rather than extending it, it should be used in partnership through the community safety partnership.

In relation to lowering the age for issuing a community protection notice from 16 to 10 and increasing the upper fine limit from £100 to £500 for breaches, members are mixed, particularly on the lowering of the age to 10. A lot of work goes into early intervention and prevention and how we deal with young people on the path to causing antisocial behaviour. Penalising young people at age 10 for antisocial behaviour by fining their parents if there was to be a breach is quite a significant step and flies in the face of our approach to early intervention and prevention, which uses positive mentoring and youth interventions for young people.

On extending the time frame for applying for closure orders from 48 hours to 72 hours after serving the notice, everybody was in favour, but they would like to see more explicit guidance and support around magistrates courts. On giving the closure power to housing providers, everybody who is a housing provider is absolutely in support of that; Resolve has been lobbying for that for some time now, particularly as it is a very good tool to use for more serious types of antisocial behaviour, such as cuckooing and exploiting vulnerable people.

In terms of the power of arrest for all breaches of civil injunctions, on the whole most of our members are not particularly swayed by that because the power of arrest is a very serious tool. It requires the police to conduct that power of arrest, and it will mean significant resource implications for the police. Not only that, but we would have to get past the courts on proportionality and reasonableness for the power of arrest to be attached to any clause. It would also significantly impact on the court system, particularly if someone was arrested. They would have to be presented to court the next day, so there would be issues around cells and also the management of community expectations once we had got an injunction with the power of arrest. For the CSOs who enforce breaches of community protection notices, it was felt that this would be positive because having more resources with which to be able to enforce those breaches would be welcome.

[Alex Norris]

Q76 May I come back to the point on the minimum age for community protection notices? When responding to the Government’s antisocial behaviour action plan, you talked about how we need to think about children as victims of antisocial behaviour—I think your phrase was “silent victims”. Could you briefly talk us through that?

Rebecca Bryant: Yes. I would like to bust a few myths, if that is possible while giving evidence. There is a perception in the media and the community that young people are the main perpetrators of antisocial behaviour when, in fact, they are not: the vast majority of antisocial behaviour is perpetrated by adults.

In focusing on young people, we should be thinking about how they are impacted by antisocial behaviour. They are often victims. You will have seen terrible films on TikTok and social media outlets of fights, violence and aggression. That means that those young people are victims rather than perpetrators as a whole. We certainly need to recognise that if we can get in early and use the early intervention and prevention tools available to us to stop the antisocial behaviour or stop those young people becoming antisocial, we will be able to reduce antisocial behaviour as a whole.

Antisocial behaviour is often a precursor to more serious crime, so if we can use our opportunity—I call it a “golden moment”—to intervene with a young person, perhaps with an alternative trusted adult from outside the home, and work with them to understand the impact of the behaviour that they may be perpetrating, that in itself does not fall into the idea that we should be reducing the CPN to the age of 10.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Laura Farris)]

Q Mr Redgrave, may I ask you a bit about some of the section 16 provisions about drug testing? You may be familiar with the ambition to give greater powers to test for controlled substances—class B and class C drugs—with a view to directing the person into appropriate treatment at an earlier stage; the idea is that that will intercept more serious offending further down the line. You have written something about this, for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, I think—or, at least, the Institute has done so. Can you comment on the provision, and what is your view of a wider form of testing in police stations?

Harvey Redgrave: I am in favour of this measure. I think it was used relatively effectively under the last Labour Government in relation to prolific offenders. [Interruption.] Sorry, do I need to speak a bit louder?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke. We potentially have until 3.30 pm for this panel. Would the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

Andy Cooke: Good afternoon. I am Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary and His Majesty’s chief inspector of fire and rescue services.

Andy Marsh: Hello, I am Andy Marsh, the chief exec and chief constable of the College of Policing of England and Wales.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you both for your time this afternoon. Andy Marsh, I would like to start with you. The point about vetting has come up frequently. You may have heard it in the previous panel, and you may be aware that we also discussed it this morning. What is the College’s view on vetting?

Andy Marsh: I am of the view that there has not been enough rigour in the way in which vetting responsibilities and duties have been conducted. I am also of the view—significantly because of high-profile cases, but also because of inspection work by Andy Cooke’s team—that not only have vetting processes been inadequate but they have not been complied with. The College has done two things as a start: we have rewritten the code of practice for vetting to introduce new standards, and we are about to launch a new authorised professional practice for vetting that will set new, more rigorous standards across England and Wales that address all of the areas for improvement addressed in Mr Cooke’s inspection report.

Is that enough? In my opinion it is not enough. When the spotlight moves on from this important area of safeguarding the public and the reputation of policing, will chiefs and police forces continue to apply the scrutiny and effort that is going into this at the moment? It is my intention—I have expressed this—for this to be an area of service provision that is high-risk and which the College proposes to license or authorise in each force vetting unit each year. There will be training and support for personnel, and there are good people in those force vetting units, but in my plan, if they do not achieve the required standards, they will not be allowed to do vetting. It will have to be done by another police force.

[Alex Norris]

Q I might come to you, Andy Cooke, in a second for your reflections on that, but very briefly, when you write up your expectations, are you likely to put a new time limit on the period of vetting or do you have an alternative way of doing that?

Andy Marsh: I am unlikely to put a new time limit on the period of vetting, because I think in the 21st century when people—I am talking about all employees and police officers—commit a misdemeanour or when something occurs that throws into doubt their vetting status, that happens in real time, and our vetting systems should be good enough to pick them up in real time as well. We cannot wait for periods of time.

I used to be responsible in England and Wales for firearms licensing, and that period I was responsible for saw a shift in doctrine from revisiting a licence every three or five years to revisiting someone’s safety to hold a weapon 24/7, 365 days a year. Our approach in principle, while complying with the code of practice and the authorised professional practice on vetting, is that there will be time thresholds for hard stops on renewal, but in my opinion and assessment, there is an expectation that vetting should be under constant review.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you think that is technologically possible?

Andy Marsh: I do.

[Alex Norris]

Q Andy Cooke, is the inspectorate of a similar mind to the College on this?

Andy Cooke: I am fully supportive of the College’s desire to license vetting officers to practise. As you are well aware, the vetting inspection we conducted not too long ago had more recommendations than any inspection previously done. It showed policing in a pretty poor light. Some forces were doing okay, but overall it was not sufficient to protect the public or the reputation of policing. If policing cannot be sure it has the right people in it, that is a sad indictment on the force or forces across the country. There needs to be a continued focus on this area of policing. Licence to practise will assist in that, and the inspectorate will continue to look at these issues right across the forces across England and Wales.

[Alex Norris]

Q Andy Cooke, clause 19 allows entry, search and seizure without a warrant under certain circumstances. Do you have any concerns over that power and how we can have confidence that it is being exercised properly?

Andy Cooke: It is a power that will need to be closely monitored, but it is a power I am supportive of. The ability to recover stolen property in such circumstances is a real issue if policing is going to catch the people it needs to catch, particularly around the likes of mobile phone theft, which is endemic across large parts of the country. The inspectorate will obviously keep a close eye on it as part of the legitimacy of policing and the ethical context in which policing is conducted. It will form part of future inspections when necessary.

[Alex Norris]

Thank you very much.

[Chris Philp]

Q Welcome Andy Marsh and Andy Cooke. Let me take the opportunity to say thank you for all the work you and your teams do supporting policing across England and Wales. It is very much appreciated by all of us, both in Government and in Parliament.

Andy Marsh, can I continue the line of questioning about the warrantless power of entry where it is necessary to recover stolen goods when there is no time to get a warrant? Andy Cooke just mentioned that the inspectorate would keep a close eye on whether that power, if granted by Parliament, is being exercised properly. Could you confirm for the Committee’s benefit whether you would in due course, if this were passed, produce some authorised professional practice to make sure that police forces exercise the power in a way that is responsible?

Andy Marsh: Minister Philp, as you are aware I am strongly supportive of police officers conducting all reasonable lines of inquiry to catch criminals and keep communities safe. It caused me great frustration as a chief if ever a letter landed on my desk to say, “My bike’s on sale on eBay, my daughter’s phone is in a house and you said you couldn’t do anything”.

We have already started our plans to hardwire this new power into our guidance, our training and our standard setting to do our very best, along with working in partnership with His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to ensure that we use this power consistently in two respects. I do not want to see circumstances where the power should be used, where it is not and people could be caught and property returned; and I certainly do not want it to be used in such a way that would undermine confidence in policing. As in many things in policing, we need to get this just right. The College has a fundamental role in achieving consistency and getting it just right.

Criminal Justice Bill (First sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I call Alex Norris.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you for your time this morning, Chief Constable. Your colleagues in the NPCC generally have talked a lot in the past couple of years about the misconduct and disciplinary processes for officers. Clause 74 relates to that to some degree. What is the NPCC’s view on it?

Chief Constable Stephens: As you say, we have been doing a great deal of work in trying to strengthen the misconduct processes to ensure that those who have no place in policing are removed from the service with some speed and vigour. We welcome the additional provisions in this Bill to strengthen, in particular, the role of chief constables to have a say in who should be employed within policing. This is fundamentally an employment process. In particular, we welcome the addition to allow chief constables to have a route of appeal on decisions that, at the moment, could only be done through judicial review, so we welcome that additional measure as well.

[Alex Norris]

Q Is there anything on the NPCC wish list that you would have that would go further than what is in the Bill?

Chief Constable Stephens: We are very pleased with the progress that has been made. We see no need at this point in time for any additional provisions. The broader point perhaps is, in the service, we have been doing a great deal of work to ensure that we get the right colleagues entering and, where necessary, leaving the service. Our focus now is beyond the provisions of this Bill about professional standards throughout somebody’s vocation and career and what we do to transform the culture of policing.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you have any general comments about the antisocial behaviour provisions in the Bill?

Chief Constable Stephens: In broad terms, we welcome the antisocial behaviour provisions. There is clearly a great deal of detail in the Bill, and we have a short period of time. If it would assist the Committee, I am happy to do a written submission after this morning with some more detailed comments on the whole range of provisions.

We broadly welcome the antisocial behaviour provisions. There is one such provision around rough sleeping, if I can call it that, where it causes a nuisance or there is some criminality associated with it. Our view is that that is something that needs very careful and measured consideration. We do not say in policing that rough sleeping is a matter solely for policing and, if the provisions are used, that should be done in conjunction with other local community safety partners and on the basis of necessity. For example, if rough sleeping is associated with mental ill health or homelessness, it is clearly not a matter for policing at all. If there are encampments that are directly associated with criminality, or where there is a direct risk to people in those encampments—because, for example, we do receive reports from time to time of serious sexual offences taking place in such rough sleeping groups—we would clearly want to act in concert with other community safety partners to ensure that people are safe. However, it is not a matter for policing to be removing tents in general, so that is something to which we would want to give very careful consideration.

[Alex Norris]

Q I have one final question, if I may, Chair. Obviously, the purpose of legislation like this is that there will be new responsibilities and offences that come fundamentally to your members and their teams to enforce and to utilise those new powers. Do you have any concerns about your resourcing and ability to meet the new expectations?

Chief Constable Stephens: Last week, we held the chief constables’ council in Edinburgh—that is, the gathering of all chief constables. One of the topics on the agenda was the financial resilience of policing. Our current estimate is that there is somewhere in the region of a £300-billion cash deficit in policing, which requires some difficult and careful choices about resourcing priorities. Where new provisions come forward—indeed, this was a recommendation in the recent productivity review of policing—they should be costed. Whereas we welcome many, if not all, provisions in the Bill—I am sure we will come on to talk about some of the caveats—there are no costings with them, and we will need to work through, in a very detailed fashion, what the additional burdens on policing will be.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Good morning, Gavin. Let me start by putting on record my thanks to you, as chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and to all your colleagues in policing for the work that you and officers up and down the country do daily. You put yourselves in the line of danger to protect the rest of us, and I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee and the whole House when I put on record our thanks to you and to police officers up and down the country for the work that you do daily to keep the rest of us safe.

Chief Constable Stephens: Thank you, Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from Graeme Biggar, director general of the National Crime Agency; Gregor McGill, director of legal service for the Crown Prosecution Service; and Baljit Ubhey, director of strategy and policy for the Crown Prosecution Service. For this panel, we have until 10.40 am. Welcome to you all, and thank you for joining us. I know I have just done it, but could you all please introduce yourselves for the record?

Graeme Biggar: I am still Graeme Biggar, director general of the National Crime Agency.

Gregor McGill: I am Gregor McGill, director of legal service at the Crown Prosecution Service.

Baljit Ubhey: I am Baljit Ubhey, director of strategy and policy at the Crown Prosecution Service.

[Alex Norris]

Q Thank you, witnesses, for your time this morning; it is much appreciated. Graeme Biggar, clauses 1 to 8 relate to serious crime, theft or fraud. For us in this place, it can be a challenge to keep up with the new and novel tactics used particularly by organised crime enterprises globally, but also in this country. What are your reflections on those new provisions, and are they up to date enough to keep up with the changing challenges of organised crime?

Graeme Biggar: Sorry, I missed which clauses you referred to.

[Alex Norris]

Clauses 1 to 8.

Graeme Biggar: Can you just remind me which ones clauses 1 to 8 are?

[Alex Norris]

They deal with offences related to things used in serious crime, theft or fraud, such as SIM farms and 3D printers—the sorts of items that can be used in organised crime.

Graeme Biggar: 3D printers, concealment and pill presses are three different things that are used in crimes a lot. I will come to SIM farms later. We have seen 3D-printed firearms emerge. They are a function of the fact that we have done well to control the availability of firearms in this country generally, but there is new technology available. We seized 17 weapons—3D-printed firearms—last year; we have seized 25 so far this year. At the moment, the possession of the blueprint to make that firearm is not unlawful, so we can go in and see there is a firearm there, and we can see it is a factory that is making these weapons, but we cannot do anything about it. The Bill could really help on that particular issue.

On pill presses, you will be aware of the number of deaths from drug overdoses, misuse and poisoning in the UK. In 2021—there is a bit of a lag on drug deaths—there were almost 1,500 drug deaths from overdoses on benzodiazepine, which is largely used in pill form. We get other drugs in pill form, such as ecstasy, most notably, but the Met seized 150,000 pills of fentanyl just a couple of weeks ago. Pill presses are used to create these pills and distribute them at the moment. We are unusual, globally, not to have regulation of pill presses. This legislation would make the possession and supply of pill presses without a good, legitimate excuse—there are some legitimate uses for a pill press, obviously—an offence, and that would really help us. In 2020, for example, we did a raid in which we seized 40 million pills from England that were being supplied up to Scotland.

Concealment is the final one of the three in that category. We can seize a vehicle at the border if we discover a sophisticated concealment that is built into a vehicle to hide drugs, cash or, potentially, people, but we cannot actually seize a vehicle within the UK unless we can also show that there is some criminal activity there. These concealments are purpose-built to enable stuff to be both brought across the border and then distributed around the UK. We have seized 438 vehicles over the past three years; about 150 of those were at the border, so we could do that just because there was a concealment. For the others, we had to demonstrate that there was also criminal activity, so that has largely been when we have found drugs or a gun in them. There are factories around the UK that are building these concealments, and people who specialise in building them. It would be really helpful for us to be able to seize the vehicles and prosecute the people who are building them.

You mentioned SIM farms as well. You will all be aware from your constituency correspondence of the amount of fraud there is in this country, and some of that volume is driven by the ability of fraudsters to use SIM farms to automatically generate tens of thousands of text messages. A SIM farm puts lots of SIMs together and does that in an automatic way. The vast majority of that happens overseas, but we have discovered a few SIM farms in the UK. Being able to take action on that would be really helpful too.

[Alex Norris]

Q Just quickly, I have a question for colleagues from the Crown Prosecution Service. There are lots of new offences in this Bill. New offences mean new arrests, and new arrests should then lead to new charges and new cases. From a CPS point of view, how do you feel at the moment about resourcing and being able to take cases through speedily, and do you have any anxieties about new burdens and the extra support you might need in order to exercise those new burdens?

Gregor McGill: It is fair to say that resources are tight at the moment, so any new offences coming into the system will affect not only the CPS but other parts of the criminal justice system—the courts and the prisons—so that will have to be factored in. We are in the process of talking with the Treasury about resources, but that is a relevant factor. We do not know how many cases this will involve. What I can say is that our corporate position is that these will be useful offences to be able to work closely with our colleagues in the National Crime Agency and wider policing to affect criminality, but you are quite right that we will have to keep our eye on the resource implications of them and come back to Ministers if we find that there are issues.

Graeme Biggar: May I just add a comment? For a lot of these particular offences, it will shortcut our investigations, because at the moment we are finding 3D-printed firearms or concealments, but we have to do a whole bunch of extra work to be able to reach the criminal threshold for an actual charge, so in some senses this will actually make things easier for us.

[Chris Philp]

Q Graeme, thank you for all the work that you and your colleagues at the NCA do—and thank you also to the CPS for the work that you do prosecuting cases. Graeme, you mentioned in response to the shadow Minister, who covered many of the points I would have asked about, the articles used for serious and organised crime, including 3D printing templates for firearms. Do the clauses as drafted contain everything you would want to see in that regard? Are there any areas where the drafting could be improved or does this do the trick as it is drafted?

Graeme Biggar: The drafting for those items does everything I think we need to see regarding both possession and supply. There are other issues that, over time, we will want to think about adding. It is very helpful to see that the Bill allows a mechanism for secondary legislation to be brought forward in order to add other items. One issue that we are looking at currently is childlike sexual abuse dolls. We can seize them, as it is an offence to bring them across the border, but it is not an offence to possess one in the UK. That is an issue we would want to look at adding to that section.

Town Centre Safety

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House condemns the Government’s failure to tackle town centre crime; is concerned that shoplifting has reached record levels, with a 25% rise over the past year and 1,000 offences per day, while the detection rate for shoplifters has fallen; believes that immediate action must be taken to stop the increasing number of unacceptable incidents of violence and abuse faced by shop workers; notes that the number of neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers has been reduced by 10,000 since 2015; and calls on the Government to back Labour’s community policing guarantee, which includes scrapping the £200 limit on crown court prosecutions for shoplifting in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, creating a new specific offence of violence against shop workers, rolling out town centre policing plans and putting 13,000 extra police and community support officers back in town centres to crack down on antisocial behaviour.

It is a pleasure to open this debate on a motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Home Secretary, myself and colleagues.

Safety in our town centres is a subject that the public are deeply concerned about. It has a totemic impact on how we feel about where we live; people love their community and hate it when a small number of people are able to wreck it for everyone else. Nevertheless, it is an undervalued aspect of public policy and we are currently being let down by the Government’s lack of ideas and lack of interest in tackling this scourge.

Criminal damage in our town centres increased by 30% last year. There were 150 incidents of damage in public places each and every day. Every one of those incidents is another reason for people to stay at home, shop online or not go to the pub, and contributes to a sense that it is just not worth the bother of leaving the house. That is devastating for local bricks-and-mortar businesses, destroys the viability of our town centres, runs down patronage of public transport and creates an inexorable sense of decline.

Those who perpetrate such incidents do it because they think they can get away with it. In this country we now tolerate 90% of crimes going unsolved; last year there were 2 million crimes unsolved. Criminals are now half as likely to be caught as they were under the previous Labour Government. What an extraordinary indictment of 13 years of Tory leadership.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

In a rural area such as my constituency, where the town centres are small and spread out, one of the problems the police have is getting from place to place, partly because they have a shortage of basic kit such as police cars. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is not just about community policing, but about resourcing the police with the physical things that they need to get about?

[Alex Norris]

Absolutely. I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It becomes more pressing, as she says, with rural communities, because the thin blue line can feel very thin indeed. It is important that we have the right number of officers and the right kit to meet the needs of the community.

Levels of retail crime, alongside violence and abuse towards shopworkers, have increased substantially in recent years. Figures provided by the British Retail Consortium, the retail trade body, show that retail crime was up by more than a quarter in England and Wales last year. Again, that is terrible for business and creates a public environment that people do not want to be part of—another reason to stay at home.

Similarly, violent and abusive incidents in stores have risen significantly. In aggregate, we are talking a staggering 850 incidents every single day. That is goods being lifted and staff being abused physically, threatened, intimidated or spat at—all those horror stories This is theft and violence on an epidemic scale, happening across every town centre, every single day.

We have a special duty in this place to stand up for shop workers—yes, because everybody should be able to go to work without fearing violence and abuse; yes, because while we told everyone else to shutter themselves away during the pandemic, they still went out to work so that we had the food and supplies we needed; but particularly because we ask them to restrict the sale of dozens of products that in the wrong hands could be dangerous, such as acid, knives, alcohol and cigarettes. In that moment they are of course working for their employer, but beyond what it might say on their name tag, they are public servants, and we know that that creates potential flashpoints, each decline of sale a possible moment for violence or abuse. The continued lack of action is failing these people.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

May I check something with the shadow Minister? What is the difference between his proposal and that which was enacted under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2023, which upgraded offences against shop workers, who do very brave work indeed, to aggravated offences?

[Alex Norris]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for seeking to explain to me my own amendment to that legislation. I promise him that I will get to that point. I will not break that promise; I will explain the difference in detail shortly.

Retailers, unions, representative bodies, staff and management are totally aligned on the need for action—action that I will set out shortly when I detail our alternative, which is expressed in the motion. But first we must address this question: how did we end up here? The blame lies squarely at the door of this Government, following 13 and a half years of making the lives of criminals easier. Take first the disastrous decision to cut 20,000 police officers—a decision so damaging that they have spent the past five years desperately seeking to plug the gap. The loss of each officer from the frontline emboldened those who seek to do down our town centres. Those who cause disruption and crime today learned their skills and gained their confidence in an environment of hollowed-out policing.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a link between the 10,000 cut in the number of neighbourhood officers and police community support officers since 2015 and the increase in shoplifting? Does he also agree that it is irresponsible of the Government to call for citizen’s arrests instead of being tough on crime and the causes of crime?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. The causality is there: the lack of availability of neighbourhood policing has created an environment in which people feel that they can steal without consequence. On citizen’s arrest, I share my hon. Friend’s view that it is not something that we should be asking people to do. I know that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire is enthusiastic about it, but is it practical? Take the Co-op, a retailer that is making huge strides to protect its staff. In general, it does not ask its staff to detain shoplifters, but some of its covert teams do. In incidents where they detain someone who has committed or is alleged to have committed a crime, four times in every five, having taken them to the back, they have to let them go again because there is no one to make the arrest. The idea that we can citizen’s-arrest our way out of this is for the birds.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pity that the Scottish National party Members are not here, because normally they would waste no opportunity to stand up and say how well they do things in Scotland, and how much better they do them than the rest of the UK. We have six police officers for the whole county of Sutherland, which is 2,028 square miles. I can tell hon. Members that in the biggest conurbations in my constituency, such as Alness, Wick and Thurso, we do not see cops on the beat and old people feel very vulnerable indeed. I know that it is a devolved matter, but I will not waste this opportunity to point out that things are far from right in Scotland, and I wish that the Scottish Government would catch a grip.

[Alex Norris]

Policing is a reserved matter, as the hon. Gentleman says, but the experience of communities like his is reflected across all our four nations. That is why I said to his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), that we ought to have that staffing kit as well as the equipment in order to try to protect the public.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I represent the Labour and Co-operative party and I have great sympathy for shop workers who are being harassed and attacked, and having a really tough time. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need not only more community police, but far better co-operation with the big supermarkets and their staff, and for them to bring together a whole team to protect both shoppers and those who are serving?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention from my Co-operative party colleague, because I can express our pride that the Co-operative party is spearheading this work in Parliament. I agree that there needs to be work between retailers and staff, but we should take pride in the work that has already gone on between retailers and the unions. They are in lockstep on this, which is not always the case, and that co-operation is a great asset in this fight.

Even when the Government have attempted to reverse the disastrous implications of cutting 20,000 police officers, they have failed, because in adding back officers, they have squeezed out police staff and moored warranted officers away from the frontline, so we are 10,000 neighbourhood police short of the previous figure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) said. Each officer is another gap in that thin blue line, allowing criminals to run amok. Half the population say they rarely see police on the beat, a figure that has doubled since 2010.

However, we know that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire has a cunning plan, which he unveiled last week at Home Office questions. To beef up the number of neighbourhood police, the Government are now going to count response police as neighbourhood police. That is risible nonsense. The clue is in the name: neighbourhood police are out on the streets, in their communities, providing a named presence, and building trust and relationships. The dynamic is different.

Neighbourhood police can be proactive, go to local community projects, get to know people, and build trust and relationships. That is a different dynamic from response police, who might attend a community event, but then a day later be in a situation down the road where they have to put in someone’s door or supervise a significant or difficult moment in a community. The relationship with the community is inherently different.

Similarly, response police can be called away at a moment’s notice, to the other side of the force area. It is simply not the same and it is deeply worrying that the Government think that it is. It represents a triple failure: officers cut, officers added back in the wrong place and now other types of officers being rebadged. They are failing communities and failing our hard-working police.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend talks about rebadging officers, but our wonderful police community support officers are worth a shout-out. They do day-to-day work and often stay in the job for a long time. When I am on doorsteps in Hackney, the residents often know the name of the local PCSO. Obviously, we need more police, but it would be good to have more PCSOs as well.

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend is exactly right and I will come on to our plans for more PCSOs. They provide a neighbourhood link and, as she says, a more sustained connection to a community. They also ensure our police forces are more representative of the communities they serve, so they add an excellent dimension to our policing.

However, policing has not been the only problem. We are still reaping the pain from the catastrophic decision to downgrade thefts of £200 and under in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which has been a godsend to shoplifters. It has created a generation of thieves who think they will not be caught or even investigated. On the back of that, high-volume organised retail crime has been generated, with huge criminal enterprises that we are now asking the police to dismantle—what a dreadful failure of public policy. Even now, when we know the impact that has had, the Government will not match our call to scrap that measure. Instead, Ministers cling to the idea that the police are geared up to follow all reasonable lines of inquiry and that, once again, they can do more with less. Of course they cannot do that. Our officers, police staff and communities deserve better than being set up to fail.

The Government weakened antisocial behaviour powers 10 years ago and brought in new powers that were so useless they are barely used, such as the community trigger. Getting rid of powers of arrest has proved a poor idea, even though they were warned not to do that. Community penalties have halved and there is a backlog of millions of hours of community payback schemes not completed because the Government cannot run the scheme properly. That is before we get to the failures with early intervention, with £1 billion taken out of youth service budgets and the dismantling of drug and alcohol services. The disruption we see in our town centres today stems from a litany of bad decisions taken by those on the Government Benches over the last 13 years. The Government have failed and our communities are paying the price.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

The shadow Minister is talking about bad decisions. Does he agree that the Labour police and crime commissioner made a bad decision not to reopen Dinnington police station when he had a £2 million budget underspend a few years ago? He was happy to reopen Edlington police station in Doncaster, but when it came to Rother Valley and Dinnington police station, he said no.

[Alex Norris]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, those are devolved decisions where that individual has the mandate to make such decisions. His constituents have the right to change the police and crime commissioner at the next election. They also have the chance to change the Member of Parliament at the next election, so we shall wait for those judgments in due course.

[Alexander Stafford]

I am pleased that he raises the matter of elections, because in July there was a council election in Dinnington, where the police station should be reopened, and the Conservatives increased their share of the vote by over 10%. It is clear that people want the police station to be reopened and they rejected Labour’s lack of policing in our area.

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman wishes to express confidence and ease, but I am afraid he is not doing a very good job of it.

There is a better way: where the Government have failed, the Opposition have a plan to wrest back control of our streets. [Interruption.] Government Members might be interested in some of the concepts, including the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), who chirps at me despite having asked me a question that I am going to address.

We make a community policing guarantee to our country. It starts with policing back on the beat, with 13,000 more police and police community support officers in neighbourhood teams. With funding based on conservative estimates of available savings identified by the Police Federation, we will restore visible police and PCSOs back on the streets, deterring and detecting crime, and building relationships and confidence.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

The shadow Minister will be aware that here in London, the Metropolitan police and Sadiq Khan, the Labour police and crime commissioner, were given significant funding by the Government to increase police numbers, but the force was the only one in the country not to hit its recruitment target, costing London over 1,000 police officers. How would his plan work here in London, with Sadiq Khan?

[Alex Norris]

I will not take lectures on police numbers from a member of a party that cut them. As I said to his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), those are devolved matters. As a Government, we will make available the resourcing for 13,000 more police and police and community support officers.

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. We want to protect shop workers and stop shoplifting—it would be wrong to say that we did not—but in my constituency, which is similar to that of my hon. Friend, poverty stalks our land. The gap between rich and poor means that the country is the most divided I can remember in my 44 years in Parliament. There are desperate people in our communities. I do not approve of any of them breaking the law, but does my hon. Friend agree that it would be dishonest for any of us to pretend that poverty does not stalk this land?

[Alex Norris]

I do agree. One of the core missions of a future Labour Government will be to tackle that poverty and give everybody the opportunity to live full, productive and happy lives.

Secondly, on our policing guarantee, we will tackle antisocial behaviour in our town centres head on. In particular, we pledge to introduce new respect orders that will give the police and local communities the right tools to exclude from town centres those who repeatedly disrespect them. They will be a quick, effective tool that tilts the balance back to the vast majority of people who do things the right way.

Thirdly, we will stand up for shopworkers. We will scrap the disastrous £200 downgrade in the 2014 Act and thereby make it clear to thieves that open season is over and to retailers that we value their businesses. In the same vein, we will heed the call from USDAW, from all the major retailers and from all the representative bodies for a new specific offence of assault against a retail worker. As a Labour and Co-operative party Member of Parliament, I am proud to have spearheaded attempts to recognise assault against retail workers as an aggravating factor in sentencing, but we need greater clarity in the law. Having it as a sentencing factor alone does not seem to be acting as a deterrent, so we need a specific offence, as there is in Scotland thanks to the excellent work of Daniel Johnson MSP. That will send a clear signal to those who perpetrate attacks that it is not acceptable, and make it easier for the police to police this scourge.

Fourthly, we want to put communities back into community policing. Too often, people tell us that they feel policing is done to them rather than with them, and that they do not think that local policing priorities necessarily match their own. Much of the problem is about resourcing, given the Government’s denuding of police our forces. Our commitment is for town centre planning so that those who live, work, play and trade in our town centres will get to have a say in how they are protected. There will be proper community police plans to reflect the community’s priorities, with a named officer to work with as the plans develop.

Fifthly, the final component of our community policing guarantee is that we will restore the value and cachet of community policing. We will ensure that the path to career progression in policing is through officers getting to know their community, and that all neighbourhood officers have the skills and training to be problem solvers as well as recorders of crime. We will also work with the College of Policing and police chiefs to ensure that neighbourhood policing has access to cutting-edge technology and methods, including data analytics and hotspot policing.

That is our community policing guarantee. Taken in its aggregate, it is by far the boldest commitment to keeping our town centres safe that has been made in recent memory. That is the scale of ambition that we ought to see from the Government, but we simply do not.

This is good moment to talk about the Criminal Justice Bill, which is to some degree an attempt to address some of the issues we are debating. We did not oppose it on Second Reading and intend to work constructively in Committee to improve it. There are good things in the legislation—we are glad to see an enhanced focus on fraud; to see the police given powers to address issues that annoy our constituents, such as the search and seizure of stolen items that are GPs tracked; and to see greater flexibility around public spaces protection orders—but is that really it? This is the final year of this parliamentary term and we have a crime Bill that is tougher on homeless people than it is on those who terrorise our town centres. There is nothing on retail crime and nothing on neighbourhood policing. We will look to add measures in Committee, but we should not have to.

The Government can take the first step to addressing the situation by accepting our motion, but I fear that they may well not be minded to do so. I fear that we will hear the same messages we always hear: an attempt to convince the British public that they have never had it so good on policing—record this or record that—or that in some way our proposals will happen soon. [Interruption.] The right hon. Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire has not learned from the Home Secretary the lesson about chirping from the Front Bench. I say to him that the British public do not buy those arguments and deserve better. If he genuinely believes that the status quo is better than what is offered by those on the Opposition Benches, let us let the British public decide. Ask them whether they have never had it so good, or are ready for change. I will take my chances with them any day.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Codes A, B, C, D and H and New Code I) Order 2023

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 General Committees

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. As we heard from the Minister, the order concerns numerous changes to the codes of practice contained in PACE. We accept that these changes are required as a result of the passage of the National Security Act and the Public Order Act. In a similar vein to the comment about welcome words in debates, I can say that those measures were debated at great length and I do not intend to rehearse or rehash those arguments. I put on record my gratitude to the Minister for his correspondence ahead of this Committee sitting and for being clear about what the Government are and are not doing with the statutory instrument. That was much appreciated.

I will just highlight a couple of the changes compelled by the National Security Act. On code A, the most notable changes relate to and govern searches of individuals subject to a state threats prevention and investigation measures notice and the exempting of police officers from having to provide their names in inquiries relating to national security. The Opposition of course support those very sensible provisions.

On code B, the changes reflect the search-and-seizure powers in schedule 2 to the National Security Act. Again, during the passage of that Act, we broadly supported these measures, and we continue to do so. On code C, there is a clarification that individuals arrested under section 27 of the National Security Act will be subject to the new code I, rather than code C. That also is the case in code D. I will cover code I at the end, because that is probably the bit that is of interest, but again we support the approach being taken there. On code H, I associate myself with the Minister’s comments about the independent reviewer. We, too, are grateful for the work that has been done there. We think the Government have taken a sensible approach in implementing those recommendations.

As I said, I think the action and the interest, perhaps, are in code I. First, under section 27 of the National Security Act, a constable can

“arrest without a warrant anyone who the constable…suspects is, or has been, involved in foreign power threat activity.”

This code will govern the detention, treatment and questioning of individuals arrested under that power. Again, we recognise and agree on the importance of granting law enforcement officers such powers and we welcome the changes. We think that this gives the police a good window in which to work in order to undertake the investigations needed to confirm whether an act of espionage or sabotage has been committed. It also gives the public some confidence that there is a regime that governs this process and that there is a power that provides control, oversight and accountability, which strikes the right balance between individual liberty and collective security. That covers the elements relating to the National Security Act.

There are changes in code A relating to the suspicionless stop-and-search powers introduced by the Public Order Act. Again, that is possibly where there will be greater interest. Stop and search has been debated significantly in this place, not least in the discussion of that Act. We have made clear our concerns on the record, so I will not recommence that debate. We are concerned about disproportionalities and about the impact on public trust. However, that is an ongoing conversation that I know the Minister and I will engage in, because it is really at the heart of public confidence in policing.

The Minister made a welcome statement at the beginning about the consultation that the Government have undertaken. Can he tell us a bit about what was said in relation to stop-and-search powers? I and my colleagues would be grateful for assurances about how that matter has been handled with the appropriate sensitivity.

I will bring my remarks to a close. We do not intend to oppose the measures. We have had primary legislation; we have had our chance to discuss them. It is now vital that our hard-working police officers have clear guidance on the powers, so that they can be used fairly and proportionately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

This autumn, the Government pledged to treat retail crime as organised crime, but with their Criminal Justice Bill, they have fallen at the first hurdle. There is no consolidated offence to protect retail workers, no strong signal on the £200 limit on investigations and a denial of reality on their hollowing out of neighbourhood policing. From the answers we have heard, the Home Secretary wants us to believe that we have never had it so good, but the ones who are thriving are organised criminals. Will the Government accept our amendments to add the protection of shop workers into the legislation?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman will know that attacking shop workers is already a statutory aggravating factor. We will look at what more we can do to protect shop workers. The retail action plan is in place, including the use of CCTV and facial recognition software. We will continue to explore all avenues to protect shopworkers, because they, like everyone else, deserve our protection.

Alcohol Licensing (Coronavirus) (Regulatory Easements) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 General Committees

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I welcome the Minister to her position. I know that she will bring her characteristic thoughtfulness to her work. The Home Department and the shadow Home Office team have been known to occasionally disagree, but I am sure we can disagree well when we do so.

The Opposition do not intend to stand in the way of this instrument, so I will keep my remarks brief. We support it, and we support efforts to assist the hospitality sector through the aftermath of the pandemic, the effects of which, as the Minister said, are still being felt. The hospitality industry in particular is hampered by the cost of living crisis at the moment, as disposable incomes are pared back, so the more support we can give, the better.

This is a reasonable accommodation to be made for business, and it strikes an appropriate balance between business and the community, but I hope this is the last time we extend these provisions in this way. It was heartening to see in the explanatory notes that there is a proper new unified licensing regime coming. That needs to be drafted, consulted on and put before Parliament, so that we can do our best by our constituents and perhaps iron out the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown raised and those that came out of the consultation.

I hope the Minister will expand on the commitment she has made. As I say, it is heartening to hear that this work is under way. The extension in this instrument lasts until March 2025, which takes us past the latest possible date for a general election. I would welcome some clarity as to whether we can expect the new regime in this parliamentary Session, before a general election, so that we do not have to do this again in March 2025 on an emergency basis, because we do not yet have a new regime to discuss.

There are concerns about the provisions in this legislation that need to be addressed by a unified regime. As the noble Lord Coaker said when the instrument was debated in the other place, the explanatory memorandum shows that the consultation responses were not, it is safe to say, supportive of this measure. There were 174 responses, which is not a huge number, but two thirds of those who replied wanted to return to the pre-covid provisions of the Licensing Act 2003. Slightly less—63%—opposed making the provision relating to temporary event notices permanent, but as the Minister says, that will be discontinued, which is welcome. Given that it has not been used, it is right to turn that provision off.

The Government spokesperson in the other place said that the reason for the Government going against the consultation was that, broadly speaking, the support was from the industry, with the opposition mainly centred on local residents and licensing concerns, and that, having viewed the consultation results, the Government opted to give more weight to the industry and continue the easements. I hope the Minister will expand on that. We are sent here to make such judgments based on evidence and to weigh up a variety of factors, and it is reasonable to sometimes act against a consultation, especially when I suspect that many of these concerns could be better addressed through local action under the current regime, or certainly under a broader, unified regime. However, it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed that that was the nature of those disagreements.

Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the National Police Chiefs’ Council, it would be helpful to know which representative bodies opposed and which supported this measure. I would be particularly interested to hear what the police and those who speak for local government said.

Another element of the consultation outcome related to crime and antisocial behaviour as a result of these easements. Happily, a majority—two thirds—of respondents said that they had not seen a change in crime and antisocial behaviour, but a significant minority of one third had. Again, I would be keen to hear from the Minister what assessment the Home Department has made of this, whether the impact of antisocial behaviour came up in those conversations with the National Police Chief’s Council, and what mitigations might be needed. We know that police forces and police officers are doing an amazing job all day, every day, and we would not want to make that harder, because we know that they are thinly stretched.

I have given the Minister a lot to address, and I hope she is able to do so. We will not oppose these measures, but it is time to move from this sticking plaster approach to a proper scheme that the public can buy into.

Hate Crime Against the LGBT+ Community

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mrs Cummins. I would like to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing this debate, which has been so well attended. When I was shadow Public Health Minister, I had the chance to collaborate with him on his vital work to end the transmission of HIV. His efforts there have been remarkable, and he has set the tone and brought the same kind of spirit to today’s debate. He talked about the stark and horrific reality of hate crime, which should act as a call to action. He made crucial points about reference, which were echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake). We as leaders have a real responsibility in this space.

The debate has been important. I am particularly grateful to colleagues who were able to talk about their personal experiences. People assume that as parliamentarians we are confident in always sharing what can be very deep parts of our personality, but it really has enriched the debate, and I am exceptionally grateful for that. My hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) made really important points about under-reporting. Our efforts today and the leadership we show from this place—we must hear that from the Minister, and I will have some ideas myself—are the way to drive up reporting and build confidence. We know for too many people that confidence is not there at the moment.

I want to cover the point from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder). First, to be very clear, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) has a very diverse constituency in Manchester and represents all her constituents, no matter their background—political or otherwise. That T-shirt is not an act of hate. Similarly, we would not interpret condoms at Tory party conferences that say, “Labour isn’t working, but this condom will (*99% of the time)”, as such. We take it in the spirit in which it was meant. I would be saddened if it was not taken in the spirit in which it was meant. I want to put that on the record.

In recent years we have seen incidents of hate crime rise significantly. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation have risen by almost 500% over the last decade. Crimes targeting transgender identity are up by 1,000%. We would expect to see some increase as we have, as a whole society, pushed to improve reporting, but even from isolating the data to the recent past four years—2018 to 2022—hate crime on the basis of sexual orientation is up by 41% and on the basis of gender identity by 56%. There is a problem here, and reporting alone cannot explain it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said, there are changes in all our communities.

LGBT+ people must be treated fairly, with dignity and with respect. As leaders in this place, our commitment is to treat these issues with sensitivity, rather than to stoke division and pit people against each other. We should be proud of our record as a tolerant country. We should be proud of our progress on equality. As the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) said, we should be overjoyed that we have the most out LGBT+ Members of Parliament of any legislative body in the world. But that progress is not inevitable. We need to hear the Government’s plan to reverse this trend in hate crime and to reverse how LGBT+ people feel today.

Where the Government will not step forward, we stand ready. We are proud that the previous Labour Government did more to advance LGBT+ equality than any in history and, if given the chance, the next will break new ground in this space, too. We would introduce a full and immediate trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy, protecting legitimate talking therapies but closing any consent loopholes that are put in the statute book in the meantime.

We will also strengthen and equalise the law so that anti-LGBT+ and disability hate crimes are treated as aggravated offences. In doing so, we would accept the Law Commission’s recommendations that the aggravated offences regime be extended across five protected characteristics: race, religion, sexual identity, transgender identity and disability. That will ensure that anyone who falls victim to hate crime is treated equally under the law and that the perpetrators of anti-LGBT+ and disability hate can no longer dodge longer sentences. Those commitments sit alongside our broader, crucial pledges to put 13,000 neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers back on our streets and embedded in our communities, so that they can build local relationships to combat hate crime and deter it through their visible presence.

[Florence Eshalomi]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the horrific attack at the Two Brewers in my constituency of Vauxhall on Sunday 13 August. I commend the organisation for working with the police: the perpetrator was caught a month later and he is still on remand. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need more police officers across all our communities to ensure that anyone committing these heinous attacks will feel the full weight of the law?

[Alex Norris]

Absolutely. We want to send a very strong signal that, under a future Labour Government, there would be 13,000 extra staff, compared with the 10,000 fewer we have at the moment, to take back our streets so that those who think they can break the law with impunity find out that they no longer can.

There is a significant point about charging. Our charging commission, chaired by former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird, will be providing recommendations on raising the scandalously low charge rates that are so damaging to our justice system and are letting criminals off the hook. This is a plan to reverse a legacy of decline. We are determined to turn this situation around, and to make our streets safe with a police and justice system that is fit for the future and that the LGBT+ community can trust to combat hate crime and bring the perpetrators of it to justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Home Secretary seeks to paint a rosy picture on crime. In reality, retail crime is, as described by the Co-op, “out of control”, and with 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police and police community support officers, that is no surprise. Across all retailers, there are more than 850 acts of violence or abuse every single day. The Co-op also reports that even when it detains someone suspected to have committed a crime, 80% of the time it has to let them go again because the police are stretched too thinly to come and make the arrest. When will the Home Secretary drop this pretence that things are going well and actually stand up for our shop workers?

[Suella Braverman]

We take these matters incredibly seriously. That is why my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister met the Co-op and other major retailers recently to discuss this issue in detail. Shoplifting and retail theft have become a challenge for retailers and our community, which is not right. That is why, a few weeks ago, we made a nationwide commitment whereby all police forces have agreed to follow every reasonable line of inquiry. That will mean that CCTV footage, online evidence of resale and other actionable evidence will be followed up by the police, leading the investigations and justice process.