Oral Answers to Questions

Bim Afolami Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He represents a constituency with which I am familiar. The work of his local resilience forum, his chief constable and police officers and staff throughout the pandemic has been exemplary. I want to put on the record my praise for them. On PPE supplies, it is my understanding that the force has achieved sufficient supplies. That is something that we have been working on at a national level. The Government have previously indicated that forces should be reimbursed for expenditure and, obviously, we will be working on that across Government.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to help reduce the level of theft of tools from trades people.

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

Stealing someone’s tools is a particularly rotten kind of crime. Not only does it deprive them of their belongings, which is bad enough, but it also often deprives them of their livelihood, notwithstanding the inconvenience that it causes to them and their employers. We are determined to do something about this, which is why I recently convened a group of people from the industry and from policing to look at what more we can do to help. We are spending £25 million on our safer streets fund to drive down exactly this kind of acquisitive crime.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the Minister for his response. Will he join me in championing the use of modern technology to combat tool theft such as the ToolWatch app designed by Harpenden residents, Denise and Alan Brett? This technology makes each tool traceable and can help police fight this crime. Will he take this opportunity to champion ToolWatch and help to spread its use in police forces throughout the country?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is one of the most original thinkers in the House and therefore it is no surprise that he champions innovation in all things, including crime fighting. Yes, he is absolutely right, there is lots more we can do in harnessing technology to fight crime, and I would be very interested, when we get back to normal, to visit his constituents and see ToolWatch for myself so that we can take it and promote it to the industry more generally.