Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Iain Duncan Smith

Report stage
Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I bow before my right hon. Friend’s greater knowledge in these matters, having headed up the Department. I simply say that for this particular purpose, I agree with her. I am urging the Government to take this matter away and look at it in the other place. Although I will not press my amendment, because legal bikes are incorporated in the earlier cycling amendment that I put forward and the Government accepted, we need more work on illegal bikes and e-scooters.

My worry, as I have said again and again, is that people can buy these things without any qualification whatsoever, whereas if I as a motorcyclist buy a bike, I have to be able to demonstrate that I am qualified to ride it away from the shop. People are not required to do so with e-bikes and e-scooters, so there is a peculiarity. Everywhere else in our legislation, we follow through. This one has dropped through the grid, and I therefore urge the Minister and the Department to look closely at the matter and see whether we can define that better in the other place and ensure that shops are unable to sell those bikes. I will not press this new clause because I think we are at the right place so far with the Government.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

I will speak to new clauses 23, 24 and 25 in my name. New clauses 23 and 24 propose restrictions on the delivery and display of pointed knives to avoid death and serious injury from knife attacks. New clause 25 repeals certain unnecessary and unlawful punitive measures directed against Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities.

I am grateful for the interest the Minister has shown in these matters and for meeting me to discuss them. I do not intend to press them to a vote, but I look forward to her response as to how they may be progressed. I support many other amendments and new clauses to the Bill. I have signed new clause 13 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) and new clause 155 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on setting up an economic crime fighting fund. I of course congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on her new clause 1 which was debated and passed yesterday.

On Second Reading, I expressed a general concern that the necessary and complex legislation affecting the criminal justice system set out in the Bill and in other Bills and reports in this Session would place an even greater strain on an already creaking system. I will not repeat what I said then, but I hope and trust that Ministers from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are working together to ensure that resources are in place to deal with the unintended consequences when supply in one part of the criminal justice system causes demand in another. More police numbers mean more arrests, prosecutions, convictions and incarcerations, but early release or community alternatives to custody can create more work for probation and for the police.

New clauses 23 and 24 would change the selling practices of manufacturers and retailers in the following ways. First, they would prevent the delivery of lethal pointed knives to domestic premises, remote lockers and collection points. Nothing in them would prevent the delivery of pointed knives to chefs, butchers, fishmongers or any other commercial enterprise that uses pointed knives in the course of business. Secondly, they would prevent the display of pointed knives in shops, but would allow safer, rounded knives to be openly displayed in shops, and delivered by courier or mail with minimal restrictions.