(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Government understand that police demand has changed and that there is increased pressure from changing crime. Taxpayers are investing an additional £460 million this year in the police system, including income from council tax precepts. We are reviewing police spending power ahead of the provisional funding settlement to be announced later in December.
With respect to the hon. Lady, I am not going to take any lessons on progressive taxation from the party that doubled council tax when it was in power. I am sure that, even though she voted against it, she will welcome the almost £10 million of additional investment in west midlands policing this year and will look forward to the funding settlement, which is imminent.
Northumbria’s police force has had its funding cut by more than a quarter since 2010 and has lost more than 100 officers in the past year alone. This is the largest cut of any force in England, yet crime and antisocial behaviour are on the rise. Why will the Minister not accept any responsibility for this situation, which is making it harder for police officers to do their jobs and keep our communities safe?
I am not sure the hon. Lady was listening; the Government absolutely accept that there is increased pressure on the police, as demand rises and crime becomes increasingly complex. That is why we took the steps in the police funding settlement for 2018-19 that resulted in an increased investment of £5.2 million in Northumbria police, with more to come, I hope, in the police funding settlement.
It is very important that we remain open and global with our new immigration system and that we also make the best use of new technology. My hon. Friend will have heard the Chancellor announce in the Budget that we will be expanding e-gates to five other countries—the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan—and we will now also be adding Singapore and South Korea to that list.
As I said earlier, the White Paper will be published soon, but it is important for people to keep in mind that this is the biggest change to our immigration system in 45 years, and it is important that we get the detail right; then we can evaluate it together, properly.
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Hosie, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) on securing this important debate and setting out with such clarity and conviction the challenges we face. Let me pay tribute to the immense dedication of our firefighters in Tyne and Wear, and across the country, who take risks every day on our behalf. We owe it to those brave men and women to ensure that they have the resources they need to do their job properly and keep us safe. Our firefighters rely on excellent support staff, to whom we are very grateful.
Well-founded and real concerns arise from the proposed measures in the integrated risk management plan. On Friday I heard directly from firefighters at Farringdon community fire station about their fears regarding the risks that may be faced by the public under the proposals. The proposals would result in one fire engine at Farringdon being “on call”, which follows previous reductions in service across Tyne and Wear, as well as at Rainton Bridge community fire station in my constituency.
When firefighters are called to respond they do not fully know what lies before them, and it is vital that they have the resources they need to tackle the incident, so that the risk of harm is reduced as much as possible. Last Friday, and on every occasion I have met local firefighters, they impressed on me their determination to serve the community, whatever the circumstances. We discussed recent serious and tragic events in Sunderland, where firefighters have been called to respond and where there have been fire deaths. We cannot, and should not, expect those who put their lives on the line to be exposed to unnecessary risk, and the underlying factor in all this is the unfair funding settlement that leaves those areas of greatest need wanting.
Year after year the fire authority has had to confront difficult decisions driven by funding cuts from central Government, rather than what works and is in the best interests of our community. In 2012, I secured a Westminster Hall debate on that issue. In advance of this debate I reviewed what had been said then, and it is remarkable how little has changed, other than that the situation has got progressively worse. There has been an increase in incidents and fires, a massive reduction in the number of firefighters, and increased response times. If there were a backdrop of reducing demand, Ministers might find the rationale for these measures understandable, but demand is increasing, not reducing.
Since 2010, major cuts and efficiency savings have been made, yet we are facing even more. We have seen some of the worst funding settlements across fire and rescue services in England, and by 2019-20, there will have been a 19% budget cut at a time of rising cost pressures for the authority. I hope the Minister will listen to the concerns raised by hon. Members this morning on behalf of our communities and the firefighters who serve our constituents. I live in hope that the Minister will not just respond in the customary fashion, and say that these are local decisions and it is for local fire and rescue services to manage these cuts, or that local decisions fall to local decision makers to make better choices. That is not good enough when we know that the areas of greatest need have borne the brunt of austerity cuts. The Government should do the right thing for fire and rescue services, for firefighters who put themselves in harm’s way, and for the public who depend on the risks they take.
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank my right hon. Friend for that question. She is a huge champion for women, and she could perhaps assist us on that issue and contribute when we go ahead with our consultation on the new domestic violence and abuse Bill.
In the past two years alone, we have lost more than 160 police officers in my area, yet we are seeing rising levels of antisocial behaviour and youth disorder. Rather than passing the buck to police and crime commissioners, why will the Home Secretary not give Northumbria police the funding that it needs to tackle this blight in our community?
It is not a question of passing the buck; we have a devolved system whereby PCCs are accountable to the public for the performance of the police. On Northumbria’s police force, I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that it is due to get another £5.1 million next year.
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend makes a good point. The police have done a great deal of work on diversity generally, particularly seeing more women coming in, but there is more to do in relation to black and minority ethnic communities and women generally across the force. I hope that forces right across the country will be very focused on this as they go through their recruitment exercises now.
Police forces across the country are currently recruiting. The police funding formula has always been protected. We are doing a formula review. I will be meeting the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable of Northumberland shortly to discuss that and feed it into the review. The force there has benefited over the past couple of years from the ability to increase precepts above most others due to de minimis.
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend makes an important point. It is not right that some people can spend months or even years on pre-charge bail, with few or no safeguards. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss how reforms might affect the case he mentions. We will bring forward further amendments to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to ensure that 17-year-olds are treated as children and are safeguarded as such.
We are meeting this September after terrible events over the summer—in Nice, Charleroi, Normandy and Munich. We must step up international efforts to keep our people safe and tackle violent extremism. I have spoken over the summer to a number of my counterparts—not least the French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve—and they all agree that the UK must not step back from international co-operation on security and counter-terrorism. We will not shirk that.
In 2015, Northumbria police were involved in 13 extraditions. If the Home Secretary is unable to commit to retaining the European arrest warrant—I listened to her earlier answers, which did not offer a great deal of comfort—will she set out in much more detail how she will make sure that we continue to have the powers we need to tackle cross-border crime, keep our country safe and bring criminals to justice?
I remind the hon. Lady that nothing has changed yet. We will still have the European arrest warrant in place. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that she will not trigger article 50 until next year, so I urge the hon. Lady to work with her police force and reassure them that nothing has changed for now—so we can carry on with the European arrest warrant.
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am very aware that the Home Secretary visited my hon. Friend’s constituency and this excellent company with her in 2013. In my constituency, SmartWater is particularly being used in rural areas to protect very valuable agricultural plant—this is about not only prevention, but tracking it after it has been stolen.
Innovation is, of course, to be welcomed, but many forces are finding it increasingly difficult to deliver even on core policing functions. According to the National Audit Office, Northumbria police force has already suffered the highest level of funding cuts in the country. On that basis, can local people really have any confidence that we will get a fair deal from Ministers this time around?
In 2010, it was said that the cuts would be devastating, policing would suffer and crime would go up—it went down. We will look very carefully at the consultation. I stood at this Dispatch Box and promised that I would come back with different figures and so on, based on the consultation. That was a promise I gave the House and it is exactly what I have done, and I will continue to listen.
(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Government insist that areas such as the north-east can have further devolution only if they have a mayor. Does it strike my hon. Friend as a strange anomaly that so-called devolution should insist on one way of doing things and deny local people a say on whether they want a mayor in the first place?
I completely agree. I will come specifically to that point in a moment.
We have talked about some of the examples of where the approach works. Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel has turned the city into a hotbed of innovation that attracts the best graduates. A good European example is Eindhoven in the Netherlands. It has rebooted its innovation and, as a city comprising only 4% of the population, now generates 37% of Dutch patents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) mentioned the example from Wales. Many of our colleagues in local government are doing pioneering, innovative stuff across the UK. In Oldham, Labour has introduced enterprise hubs in every secondary school; in Plymouth, it is working with housing associations to build 1,000 homes; in Leeds, it is setting up an apprenticeship brokering service for small and medium-sized businesses; and in Lambeth, where I am, it is using council buildings to provide a home for small businesses. We need to promote such ways of working if we are to address the ongoing structural imbalances in our economy. We may have achieved 2.8% growth last year, but our economy is still seriously imbalanced. We need look only at the Office for National Statistics regional gross value added figures to see the uneven distribution of growth. The Queen’s Speech talked about the Government’s desire to build a northern powerhouse, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). In truth, we should seek to make every single region a powerhouse, not just have the northern powerhouse.
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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As I said in my opening comments, there have been a number of inspections of Yarl’s Wood by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons and the independent monitoring board, which, as I have said, has the keys to Yarl’s Wood and can go in any time it wants. We have found no evidence that anybody is at risk. However, the allegations made in last night’s programme are very serious and we need to get to the bottom of them and take action.
The recent footage was disturbing, but, unfortunately, allegations of sexual abuse of vulnerable women and abuse at the centre are not new. Given the apparent gulf between official reports, what the Minister has said today and life at Yarl’s Wood, and given that we have seen so many repeated failures over such a long time and the reluctance of Ministers to act so far, can we be confident that change will really happen?
It is not fair to say that Ministers have been reluctant to take action—we have taken significant action. This urgent question follows an urgent question about Oxfordshire county council, and a summit on child sexual abuse is taking place at Downing street today. There needs to be a sea change in how all people in authority and all bodies treat allegations and victims. We all have a responsibility to take this seriously.
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend rightly identifies the concerns in many communities at how Prevent is acting to safeguard them by working with families, communities and, indeed, with those front-line agencies that may be best able to pick up when someone is being radicalised and exploited. That focus remains, as well as, obviously, seeking to work with the internet industry to take down images that are seeking to promote terrorism or radicalisation.
T7. Over the past year I have been holding joint events with neighbourhood policing teams on dealing with antisocial behaviour, allowing constituents to share their concerns on a serious issue. Victims often report that they are left frustrated and concerned because despite the number of agencies involved, action is not always co-ordinated and progress can be slow. What will the Minister be doing about this?
I refer the hon. Lady to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which does a great deal to improve matters and which I must say some of her colleagues opposed when it came before the House. It introduces a range of sensible, well-judged new powers that will enable some of the problems that have occurred locally to be diminished. The measures include cross-working between different bodies involved in crime prevention.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
In the current, improved economic environment, I am pleased that people feel able to go on holiday when they have perhaps been unable to do so previously. However, I am also conscious that there will be people who have sent in their renewal applications and are concerned about whether they will be able to do exactly what my hon. Friend says his constituents want to do. That is why I have put forward these measures, which HMPO will be putting in place, in addition to those it has already put in place.
Not a day goes by without more constituents coming forward because of delays, such as the constituent who contacted me first thing this morning, having applied for their passport over six weeks ago. Time is running out. Calls to the Passport Office go unreturned and constituents of mine face the prospect of losing out on their holidays, which they worked hard to pay for. What would the Home Secretary say to my constituent, who faces the prospect of losing hundreds of pounds because of this incompetence?
What I would say to the hon. Lady—as I have said to a number of others in relation to their constituency cases—is that the Passport Office will make every effort to ensure that the applications of those who have a requirement are met quickly and dealt with properly. As I indicated earlier, straightforward cases are normally dealt with within three weeks. If extra information is required or if someone is making a first-time application and requires an interview, that can take extra time. The straightforward cases are normally dealt with within three weeks, but every effort will be made to deal with the case the hon. Lady raises, as I am sure she is trying to ensure.