Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Griffith Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Member will know that we are going through a spending review process, where questions of funding will be considered. Although the resettlement programme is currently paused owing to coronavirus, it is our intention to appropriately recommence it when circumstances allow. I thank her for the tribute that she paid to the scheme that has operated for the past five years. As she said, it is the leading scheme anywhere in Europe.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to reduce the level of crime committed in rural areas.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

We are determined to drive down crime in rural and urban areas, which is why we are recruiting an extra 20,000 police officers and, by the way, investing £85 million in the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that the criminal justice system can deal with the results.

[Andrew Griffith]

Will the Minister join me in thanking the Sussex rural crime team, which I long campaigned for and which was set up by police commissioner Katy Bourne in June this year? It is now doing excellent work, protecting our rural communities, farmers and isolated towns and villages in Arundel and South Downs.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am aware that my hon. Friend has made a huge impact in his constituency since he was elected recently and that this is a result of something that he has campaigned on for some time. I applaud Katy Bourne—who is one of our leading police and crime commissioners and is always innovating—on the establishment of this unit, and I hope that it will make a big difference.

I am reminded with rural crime of that interesting philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a crime happens and no one reports it, do the police see it? I urge my hon. Friend to encourage his constituents, particularly in rural areas—we have had a number of questions on rural crime today—to report every single crime, because modern policing is driven by data, and if a crime is not reported, as far as the police are concerned, it probably never happened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

I ask the hon. Member to contact me directly with the background and history of this particular case, and I will look into it.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

This summer, my constituency has seen a real spate of antisocial motorcyclists causing real distress and potential danger to my constituents. Does the Home Secretary agree that such dangerous driving needs to be robustly challenged?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to his police force in particular and his police chief for the outstanding work they do. I know that rural crime was mentioned earlier, but when it comes to tackling nuisance driving and, frankly, the wrong kind of driving—speeding and all those types of issues, including on mopeds and scooters—we need to ensure that people can go about their daily lives. We are already providing more funding for more police activity through police uplift, and the police have powers under the Road Traffic Act 1988 and the Police Reform Act 2002 to seize vehicles that are being driven illegally.