Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point.  I understand his consternation on behalf of his constituent and his wish that that case in particular be dealt with speedily. No doubt the commission will have paid attention to his concern. We have recently invested significantly in the commission, with hundreds of thousands of pounds in capital funding to ensure that its IT is up to scratch. It is within a whisker of reaching its target of 36 weeks as the average time taken to deal with a case, and of 85% of cases being dealt with in under 12 months. It is very important for the integrity of the judicial system not only that we convict the guilty, but that we make sure that innocent people who are erroneously convicted have their sentences corrected.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

  Increasingly we have seen individuals with a gambling addiction committing crime to fund their habit. These crimes inevitably end up being punished with custodial sentences, yet the gambling industry—which is often complicit, encourages these individuals to continue gambling and always profits from the situation—is not held accountable and escapes prosecution. Will the Lord Chancellor meet me and the officers of the gambling related harm all-party parliamentary group to discuss how we can rectify this outrageous and indefensible lack of accountability?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kit Malthouse

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

One of the most significant deterrents that we think will be available to us is differential sentencing. A judge, on giving a sentence to somebody who is involved in county lines, can already take into act culpability factors, such as the use of children. My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that the Sentencing Council is currently reviewing those guidelines, and we hope and believe that the most severe penalties will be meted out to those who exploit children in this way.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

With no statutory definition of “child criminal exploitation”, different safeguarding agencies and police forces understand the risks differently, but county lines exploitation is everywhere. In order to comply with Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s recommendation that we need a unified definition in law of child criminal exploitation, when can we expect such an announcement so that we truly safeguard these child victims?

[Kit Malthouse]

The co-ordination of the effort across Government and indeed, across all the arms of government, including local government, will be one of the primary tasks of the new Cabinet committee that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has established. The hon. Lady is right that dealing with this phenomenon, which spans force and local authority boundaries, will take a united and concerted approach, and we will be doing so over the next few weeks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kit Malthouse

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman has noted some of the recent successes that we have had in dealing with some of the really big gangs who promulgate this trade—not least the National Crime Agency’s biggest ever seizure of drugs, which were being shipped in, funnily enough, in Liverpool, in fruit and veg lorries. Nevertheless, there is always much more to do. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be encouraged by the fact that the Home Secretary and I, along with the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is responsible for dealing with serious and organised crime, are working closely together to see what more we can do in order to do exactly as the hon. Gentleman says, and take this business out from front to back.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

County lines operations have invaded every town and city across the UK, and they do not discriminate when it comes to the lives they affect. South Wales police, my own excellent constabulary, are seeing children as young as 13 arrested for involvement in county lines. We must protect the young and vulnerable from this exploitation, and no matter what the Government think they are doing, it is not enough. We need to do more to protect young people from this dreadful county lines epidemic.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Thankfully, her local police force will have more police officers next year to help with this effort, and I know that one of the key focuses of all police forces involved in dealing with this awful phenomenon is the safeguarding of young people. Obviously, I will be working closely with colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education to see what more preventive work we can do. I believe that there is quite a lot more we can do around the disruption of the business model, to make it more difficult for people to deal drugs and to launder the money involved in the trade. That would make them less likely to promote it in smaller towns and villages and more likely to concentrate instead on urban areas, where we can get to work on the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Carolyn Harris and Kit Malthouse

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

We are obviously very sensitive to the issue of domestic abuse, which is completely unacceptable in any circumstances. Work coaches in jobcentres are specifically trained to identify situations in which domestic abuse may be occurring and to offer options and assistance to people subjected to it, including alternative payments. We do not currently see the need for default split payments, because the current benefits system does not operate in that way, and a number of benefits are paid into joint accounts. However, we are aware that the SNP Government are working on an alternative, and we are happy to work with them on that in Scotland and to see how it goes.

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I will, if I may, push the Minister slightly more on that. We know that many women are prevented from accessing money because they are in abusive and controlling relationships. Given that, did the Government not give any consideration to the consequences for these women when they made the decision to put universal credit into a single bank account?

[Kit Malthouse]

We very obviously did consider that, which is why we created the alternative payment method. The current benefits system does not operate on a split payment basis, and we have not yet seen any evidence, in areas where universal credit has been rolled out, that the current system is exacerbating the situation. We firmly believe in our policy on domestic violence and abuse—the Government have made a significant commitment to that—and legislation on a comprehensive plan will come out later this year. We are not convinced that the benefits system is the way to solve domestic abuse, albeit we need to identify, in particular, women who are subjected to it and signpost them to the right kind of assistance, accommodating them in the system if we can. We do not think that doing this on a default basis is the correct approach at the moment.