Knife Crime Awareness Week

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Vaz. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing this debate and the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) for managing to make her contribution as well.

This is an incredibly important topic; any of us who have attended the funeral of a young person who has been the victim of knife crime will know that. I very painfully recall attending the funeral of 15-year-old Elianne Andam, who was murdered in Croydon on 27 September 2023 at 8.30 am. Seeing the grief of her family, her parents Michael and Dorcas and her little brother Kobi is something I will never forget. All of us need to keep in mind the tragic stories of young people who have lost their lives and the importance, therefore, of the work we are doing in making sure that we protect as many as we possibly can.

It is worth setting out some of the facts. When we see reports on social media about knife crime and individual tragic incidents, it sometimes creates the impression that homicides caused by knife crime are more prevalent than they are. We need to keep in mind where we are with progress made. In the year running to March 2010, there were 620 homicides across England and Wales. Last year, there were 577—a reduction in the number of homicides over that period, even though the population of the country has grown.

Over the same period, the Crime Survey for England and Wales—according to the independent Office for National Statistics, the most reliable source of data on offending—reported that violent crime was down by 44%. Hospital admissions following injury by a knife is another measure used to get to the heart of how much knife crime there is. Since 2019, that has reduced by 26% for people under 25.

As those figures show, quite considerable progress has been made, with reductions in homicides since 2010, reductions in violence since 2010 and a reduction in hospital admissions following a knife injury in the five years that we have been tracking those, since 2019. Despite all that progress and all those improvements, more needs to be done because every single death and every single injury is a tragedy. That is why the Government are determined to do everything possible to end the scourge of knife crime up and down the country. Of course, part of that is ensuring that the police have adequate resources. We now have record police officer numbers across England and Wales. In March 2023, we hit 149,566 officers. That is more than we have ever had at any time before. The police funding settlement this year is at a record level. The frontline budget spent by police and crime commissioners went up by £922 million this financial year compared with the last one. The resources are being made available to the police, but we need to do more than that.

We heard reference to banning different kinds of knives. We have been progressively widening the scope of knife bans. Far more knives are banned today than was the case in 2010. The most recent tranche of bans will come into force on 24 September, which will ensure that all zombie-style knives and certain kinds of machetes will rightly be banned. Curved swords have of course been banned since 2008. Wherever we see evidence that a particular kind of knife needs to be banned, we will take action to do that, but I remind the House that possession of any kind of knife, even a kitchen knife, in a public place without reasonable excuse is itself a criminal offence punishable by up to four years in prison.

[Jim Shannon]

I must say how encouraged I am by the Minister’s response to the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I mentioned in my intervention buckle knives, which the Police Service of Northern Ireland has indicated are something new that is coming through. The Minister is right that the law will encompass all those issues, but is it possible to contact some of the regional police forces to ascertain some of the issues they face? That would help in bringing forward better legislation.

[Chris Philp]

We are always open to consulting with police forces around the country, including Police Scotland and, of course, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, to ensure that we are quickly picking up those trends, as the hon. Member says.

We heard some discussions around the online sale of knives. The Online Safety Act 2023 passed through Parliament last October. When it is fully commenced—Ofcom is currently consulting on the codes of practice to implement that—it will impose obligations for the first time on social media platforms and online marketplaces, such as Facebook Marketplace, to ensure that they are applying the law to take proactive steps to ensure that, for example, under-18s cannot buy knives online. The Criminal Justice Bill, currently going through Parliament, will increase the penalty for selling a knife to an under-18 to up to two years. The Online Safety Act, which I worked on with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) when he was Security Minister, will do a great deal to prevent the sale of knives online.

We heard some discussion around prevention, which is critical. That is why the 20 violence reduction units up and down the country are receiving about £55 million of funding a year. Next year we will increase that by 50%, and that 50% increase in funding will ensure that those preventative interventions are made. It will fund things like mentoring schemes, cognitive behavioural therapy, diversionary sporting activity and so on to ensure that young people at risk of getting on to the wrong path can be helped. We are doing that in partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund, which has £200 million to invest. The fund researches which interventions actually work, because some interventions sound like they might work but in fact have no impact. I was discussing those interventions with the fund’s chief executive Jon Yates just a few hours ago.

A new initiative that we will be pioneering with the Youth Endowment Fund this autumn is a piece of work starting off in four local authorities, but I hope it will be expanded to all local authorities, to identify in each area the 100 young people at risk of getting into serious violence. That is not youngsters who are already involved in serious violence, who are being supported already, but younger people, maybe in their early teens, who are at risk of getting into serious violence and where we can make an early intervention to stop them ending up on that path. If the pilots in the four local authorities are successful, as I think they will be, part of the extra violence reduction unit funding that I mentioned could support its roll-out nationally, which I would certainly like to see.

The prevention, the bans, the Online Safety Act 2023 and the violence reduction units are all preventive measures, but we also need proper enforcement action. That includes the use of stop and search, which I have not heard mentioned so far this afternoon. Stop and search is important. In London it used to take 400 knives a month off the street, but in London the use of stop and search has gone down by 44% over the last two years, whereas in the rest of the country it has been maintained. It might be no coincidence that knife offences in London have gone up at the same time as stop and search has gone down, which bucks the national trend.

I was very pleased that the commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that he would increase the use of stop and search—done, of course, lawfully and respectfully— because it does take knives off the streets and save lives. Victims’ families have said to me, “I wish the person that killed my child”—typically a young man—“had been stopped and searched before my son was murdered.” So stop and search is an important tool that needs to be used.

To support that, we are developing new technology. It is not ready to deploy yet, but I hope it will be ready to deploy experimentally by the end of this year. It is technology that allows police officers to scan someone at a distance of, say, 10 or 20 feet—perhaps the distance that we are standing apart now—and detect a knife in a crowded street, enabling officers to identify and remove knives from the people carrying them. We are investing about £3.5 million to expedite the development of that technology. I saw it demonstrated last week. It is not quite ready to deploy, but it is very close. As soon as it is ready, I want it to be trialled. I will certainly volunteer Croydon, the borough that I represent—

[Fleur Anderson]

I think Wandsworth would like to volunteer.

[Chris Philp]

Wandsworth might want to volunteer, and perhaps Tamworth also, and get those knives off our streets.

Also when it comes to technology, the use of both retrospective and live facial recognition is helping us to catch the perpetrators of knife crime and other crimes who would otherwise not be caught. We debated this a lot in the Criminal Justice Bill Committee. The technology is getting more powerful every day and is enabling the police to catch criminals who would otherwise not get caught. Facial recognition, obviously within guidelines and respecting privacy and so on, will help us take more dangerous people off our streets.

The other thing we are pushing is hotspot patrolling. In areas where there is antisocial behaviour and serious violence, all the evidence shows that hotspot patrolling helps stop criminal offences, so we have given police and crime commissioners additional money for the current financial year, over and above their regular budget. It totals about £66 million, of which London is getting about £9 million. That is to fund hotspot patrolling in areas where the police have identified a particular problem. The evidence from pilots last year shows that intensive hotspot patrolling reduces antisocial behaviour and serious violence. I expect that money to fund, in the current financial year, about 1 million hours of extra hotspot patrolling to keep our streets safer.

In summary, it is good that violence and homicide are lower now than they were in 2010, but there is more to do. Every single death is a tragedy and it behoves all of us to do everything we can. I have set out our plans in the preventive and law enforcement arenas. I am sure all of us would want to work with police forces in our constituencies to make sure they have the support that they need to catch perpetrators and keep the public safe.

Question put and agreed to.

Hajj Fraud

Chris Philp Excerpts

Friday 17th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Let me start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and congratulating her on securing this afternoon’s Adjournment debate. I think she first raised the topic in business questions on 18 April, and here we are just a few weeks later debating it. She is right to raise the issue, particularly given that it is just a few weeks until Muslims from all over the world will travel to Saudi Arabia for Hajj. That will of course include thousands of British Muslims. For many, their pilgrimage is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

My hon. Friend set out clearly the way that Hajj fraud operates. Exploitative criminals prey on hard-working families to dupe them out of their money, sometimes using fake websites and other means to persuade people to pay for goods or services that are not forthcoming. I echo the advice that my hon. Friend gave people to make sure that they book visas only via the properly authorised route. When booking travel via a travel agent, it is essential to make sure that the travel agency or tour operator is a member of the Association of British Travel Agents, to carefully check online reviews, to make sure that the travel company is ATOL-protected by the Civil Aviation Authority, and to make sure that the flight details and Hajj visa are valid. Those are all steps that people can and should take to protect themselves and make sure the counterparty they are dealing with is a legitimate organisation. We also strongly advise people never to pay by cash or by direct bank transfer into someone’s personal bank account.

The Government are committed to tackling both Hajj fraud and fraud more widely. I am pleased to report that overall, fraud is falling, with the latest data from the crime survey for England and Wales showing a 16% reduction year on year. But I am afraid to say that fraud remains the most common crime type, accounting for about 37% of all crime. That means that one in every 18 adults was a victim of fraud in the last year. That is why we must clamp down on all forms of fraud, including Hajj fraud.

That is encapsulated in our fraud strategy, published almost exactly a year ago, which entails investing about £100 million to improve law enforcement capabilities and launching a new national fraud squad, with 400 specialist investigators in post. It also includes steps to replace the Action Fraud service this year, which has been the subject of some criticism, to ensure victims of fraud have the confidence to come forward knowing their case will be dealt with properly.

We are also cracking down on fraudsters online. We know that many cases of Hajj fraud have an online element, which requires particular vigilance. When the Online Safety Act 2023 is fully enacted, it will help the regulator Ofcom to hold to account online social media platforms if they allow fraud to proliferate. That will take time to come into force fully, so to protect people even sooner, we have agreed the online fraud charter with 12 of the largest tech companies, including Amazon, eBay, Meta and Google. That was entered into last November and includes a series of voluntary actions that they will take. When the 2023 Act comes fully into force, it will compel large social media platforms to take proactive steps to combat fraud, including Hajj fraud.

As my hon. Friend said, public awareness is critical, as is people taking steps to protect themselves. That is why the “Stop! Think Fraud” national behaviour change campaign is so important. It encourages the public to always stop and think before they make a payment, and ask themselves, “Is it possible I am being defrauded? Is the counterparty legitimate? What can I do to check their credentials before making that payment?” Criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, often now using artificial intelligence to generate images or even videos designed to trick people into paying money. The public’s vigilance is therefore extremely important, alongside the law enforcement response through the fraud strategy and the actions we are taking to compel large online platforms to be more proactive in stopping fraud proliferating online.

In conclusion, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue on behalf of her Muslim communities in the Cities of London and Westminster. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) raised the issue on behalf of the Muslim communities in his constituency. In my own constituency of Croydon South, there is a significant Muslim community too. I know that other Members with Muslim communities will echo the call made by my two hon. Friends for our constituents to be vigilant and to report immediately any suspicious activity. Hajj fraud is a disgraceful example of criminals exploiting a religious pilgrimage for their own personal gain. I am sure all of us condemn that wholeheartedly and will do everything we possibly can to stop it.

Question put and agreed to.

Licensing Hours Extensions Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill, and for the charm and expertise with which she has piloted it through the House. This is probably the shortest Bill I have ever been involved with as a Minister; I think the longest one was the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which ran to about 220 clauses and several hundred pages. This Bill is a model of pith and conciseness —if only every Bill were as simple.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on marshalling both sides of the House behind her Bill, and I thank the Members who have spoken today. I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), for her support; my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for talking about the pubs in her constituency, here in the heart of London, and for bringing to bear her expertise as a former chair of licensing at Westminster City Council; and, of course, my right hon. Friend the incomparable Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who brought to bear her very extensive experience in this area that she has diligently amassed over many years, across the length and breadth of the kingdom. There are few colleagues with greater or deeper expertise than my right hon. Friend when it comes to visiting pubs, which I intend as a profound compliment.

As we have heard, this Bill amends section 172 of the Licensing Act, which already makes provision for the Secretary of State to make orders relaxing licensing hours in England and Wales on occasions of exceptional international, national, or even local significance.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Under that definition —international, national and local significance—tomorrow is the play-off final at Wembley between Oxford United and Bolton Wanderers. Would that qualify under the changes in the Bill, and since the play-off is tomorrow, can the Minister make sure that all parts of the Bill have completed their passage by that time?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend will have noticed that the second and final clause of the Bill states that the Act will come into force on the day on which it is passed, but of course it has to complete its passage through the other place first, so unfortunately, I do not think that play-off final will benefit from these provisions. Whether a play-off final between such auspicious teams as Bolton Wanderers and Oxford United would qualify as an event under this Bill would be for the Home Secretary of the day to determine. In all seriousness, although the parliamentary mechanism is being changed from the affirmative resolution procedure to the negative resolution procedure, the underlying criteria are not changing; I do not think we would want to usher in a wholesale change of licensing hours through this mechanism. The threshold is quite high and it is used fairly rarely, so I would like to temper expectations. We do not expect the provisions to be used indiscriminately, although that in no way detracts from the importance of the game taking place at Wembley—obviously I wish both teams the best of luck.

These orders will benefit businesses, as we have heard, allowing them to stay open for longer when important events are taking place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, it is much easier to use blanket licensing extensions than to require pubs to go through the onerous, expensive and tedious process of applying for a temporary event notice from their local authority. This approach is much better.

To give a flavour of the kind of events that might qualify for these provisions, they might include things such as His Majesty the King’s coronation last year, Her late Majesty the Queen’s 90th birthday and her platinum jubilee, the royal weddings in 2018 and 2011, and the Euros final in 2020. If anyone is wondering whether the Bill will apply to future England appearances in finals, let me say that, while that might be more in hope than expectation, we should none the less legislate in hope.

We have already heard Members set out the reasons why we should make this change, which has commanded widespread support. We have heard that such games can often arise at relatively short notice—for example, England reaching the final, which has been referred to. When Parliament is not sitting, it is obviously not possible to use the affirmative resolution procedure, although let me be clear: even with the negative resolution procedure, scrutiny is possible. Where necessary, it is possible to pray against resolutions made under the negative procedure, so if a Member feels strongly, they can obviously pray against the instrument in the normal way.

As Minister for crime and policing, I am obviously aware of how important it is to consult the police regularly and make sure that they are happy that, where we extend licensing hours, that will not cause any undue problems with public order. It is important that the Home Secretary of the day consults the police appropriately to make sure that risk is considered, but I am sure that will not stop the power being used when appropriate. As I have said, the power in section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003 has been used relatively sparingly, and that approach is not going to change. The test is an event of exceptional significance, which imposes quite a high bar.

To make just one final point, for the avoidance of doubt, this instrument applies only in England and Wales, because it amends the Licensing Act 2003, which applies only to England and Wales. Licensing is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I assume explains why there are no Members from either Scotland or Northern Ireland joining us this morning to hear about all the pubs in the constituencies of the various Members who have spoken—in which context, I should commend the pubs in Croydon South, such as The Fox in Coulsdon and the Wattenden Arms up by Kenley airfield. [Interruption.] Of course, there is a Member from Scotland sitting right behind me, who I did not notice.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Con)]

The Minister is making an excellent speech. I, too, give my wholehearted support to the Bill, on behalf of pubs across Scotland and in my constituency. It might not have a direct impact there, but we recognise its importance right across the United Kingdom and the important message it sends, so I thank the Minister —and remind him that I am still from Scotland.

[Chris Philp]

I offer my abject and heartfelt apologies for overlooking my hon. Friend, who is sitting right behind me. She is Scotland’s only voice in Parliament today, and Scotland is all the better off for her presence here—particularly on this side of the House, where she belongs, and where she is very welcome and held in high regard and great affection.

There are many Bills to get through today, and I do not wish to test the patience of the House or colleagues by speaking for too long. I fear that the most popular words in any speech I give are the words “and finally,” so—and finally I thank once again the hon. Member for South Shields, who has piloted the Bill through Commons, and those who have spoken in support of it and served on the Bill Committee. This straightforward and simple measure will free up valuable parliamentary time, as we heard earlier, and allow the Government to respond in an agile way in what I hope is the likely event that teams from the home nations make progress in various international sporting events, meriting an extension to the licensing hours of this nation’s fine pubs. I commend the Bill to the House.

Alcohol Licensing Consultation

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

The Government are today launching a consultation on measures that would make it easier for licensed premises to sell alcohol for consumption in an adjacent licensed pavement area. This consultation aligns with the Government’s commitment to support businesses and our broader work on smarter regulation.

The Licensing Act 2003 allows premises licence holders to sell alcohol for consumption on site (“on-sales”), off site (“off-sales”) or both. The holder of an on-sales only licence can subsequently apply to their licensing authority for a variation if they wish to add off-sales to their licence.

To provide vital support to businesses during the covid-19 pandemic, temporary provisions in the Business and Planning Act 2020 enabled on-sales-only premises licence holders to automatically also do off-sales without any need to amend their licence, thus saving these businesses time and money.

The 2020 Act also introduced changes to the process for obtaining pavement licences, which are licences granted by the local authority that allow the licence holder to place removable furniture over certain highways adjacent to the premises. The 2020 Act streamlined the process to allow businesses to secure pavement licences quickly.

The measures in the 2020 Act were designed to support businesses and the specific provisions referenced above, when taken together, meant that pubs and restaurants were able to serve alcohol outside in the area covered by any pavement licence that they held.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 has made permanent the provisions set out in the 2020 Act relating to pavement licensing, but the future of the off- sales element has not yet been decided and the provision is due to lapse in March 2025.

The Government remain committed to supporting the hospitality sector whilst it faces ongoing financial challenges. In September 2023, we made it clear that the Government’s ultimate goal is to create a unified consent regime that includes licensing consent for the consumption and sale of alcohol in the outside pavement area before the provision lapses next year. As such, we have identified three options to consult on that would enable premises to continue to sell alcohol for consumption in a licensed pavement area with ease, whilst ensuring that licensing authorities and local residents continue to have a say about what happens in their area.

Alongside new options that would make it easier for business to do off-sales, we have also included the option of making the 2020 Act off-sales easement permanent. All three options would require an amendment to legislation. As these would represent deregulatory measures, we believe that a Legislative Reform Order—made under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006—would be a suitable vehicle for making such an amendment.

The consultation will run for eight weeks and the Government will publish our response afterwards. A copy of the consultation and related impact assessment will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS472]

Crime: Birmingham, Edgbaston

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on securing this evening’s debate. Let me start by providing some national context before answering some of her questions. She mentioned a number of crime figures in her speech, and it is important to put on record that two sets of crime statistics are published: there is police recorded crime, which are the figures she is quoting, and then there is the crime survey for England and Wales produced by the Office for National Statistics. The police recorded crime figures depend on the propensity of the public to report and how good a job the police do in recording those crimes. Over the last five or seven years, the police have become a lot better at recording all the crimes reported to them, and that is why those numbers have gone up.

However, the Office for National Statistics tells us that the most reliable set of figures for long-term crime trends are not the police reported crimes figures for the reasons I have set out—they depend on the public’s propensity to report and the police’s ability to record them—but the crime survey. Let me give the hon. Lady some of the crime survey figures since 2010, which she mentioned as a reference period. On a like-for-like basis, all crime has come down by 54% since 2010, according to the independent Office for National Statistics, while violence is down by 46%, theft by 47%, domestic burglary by 55%, and vehicle theft by 39%. There is a lot more to do, particularly on shoplifting, vehicle crime and knife crime, which I will come to in a moment, but the overall crime trends are down.

On resources, which the hon. Lady mentioned a few times, across England and Wales as a whole, we now have record numbers of police officers. On 31 March last year, we reached 149,566 police officers. That is more than we have ever had before, and it surpasses the previous peak, which was in March 2010, by about 3,500 officers. So we have record police numbers, and those have broadly speaking been maintained since that record was reached in March last year.

On West Midlands police specifically, its budget this year was £790 million, which is an increase of £51 million year on year, or about 6.4%—considerably higher than the current rate of inflation. I think many of the questions the hon. Lady is asking are questions she should be addressing to Simon Foster, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, who somehow managed to get re-elected a couple of weeks ago, because he has those financial resources. Whereas other police areas around the country have hit record numbers, as has the total, that has not happened in the West Midlands. That is a question I would strongly encourage her to ask Mr Foster, now that he has somehow got himself re-elected.

The hon. Lady asked several questions about specific crime types. She went through quite a long list, so I will quickly go through some of the more important of them. She mentioned, for example, knife crime, which is a concern. The number of people getting admitted to hospital with an injury by a knife has come down by 26% in the last five years, but there is further to go. London is conspicuously much worse than the rest of the country. In the rest of the country, a lot more progress is being made, but there is an exception in London.

We are doing quite a lot to combat this. First, we are encouraging a greater use of stop and search—done respectfully, of course. That takes knives off the streets, and we would welcome cross-party support for the police to lawfully use stop and search more to get dangerous knives off the street. Secondly, we are investing in various forms of technology. In fact, just this lunch time I was with a company—an American company—that is developing a new technology that can scan somebody walking down a street to see whether they are carrying a knife, and it can distinguish a knife from a mobile phone or something else. It is not quite ready to deploy yet, but I think it will be ready to deploy experimentally this year. I think that could revolutionise our ability to look at a crowd and detect who in that crowd is carrying a knife, and then make sure they are stopped, the knife is taken off them and they are arrested.

We are also doing quite a lot of work on prevention, and the hon. Lady mentioned youth services. Notoriously, Birmingham City Council went bankrupt, but the Home Office is directly funding violence reduction units, to the tune of more than £50 million a year across the country, which are designed to work with young people—whether it is with mentoring, work experience, cognitive behavioural therapy or youth activities, sometimes in partnership with football clubs—to help get them on to a better path.

The Youth Endowment Fund does lots of work here—it has £200 million—and I commend the work of Jon Yates, the chief executive. From next year, there is going to be a £75 million increase in violence reduction unit funding over three years, which is about a 50% increase because, as the hon. Lady says, supporting those young people is so important. This autumn, we will also be piloting, with the Youth Endowment Fund, a new initiative to try to identify the 50 or so of young people or early teenagers who are most at risk of getting into serious violence and serious crime. That includes looking at a range of indicators, such as mental health, education, housing or having an older sibling who is involved in a gang—indicators that go beyond criminal justice, so that interventions can be made to stop a vulnerable or at-risk 12 or 13-year-old becoming a violent 17 or 18-year-old. That initiative has the potential to make a real difference.

The hon. Lady talked about car crime, and crime more widely, which is a concern. I recently met the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover to discuss exactly this point. We are stepping up work on car crime, and are working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead, Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims of the Merseyside force. Stolen cars are often sold and rapidly exported in containers to countries including the United Arab Emirates and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We will do more work to stop that export at the border. We will also increase the amount of intelligence work done, so that we can spot patterns and identify the organised criminal gangs who are often stealing these cars.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

The testimonies that I shared were so powerful because they are people’s experience of being victims of crime. Those people say that given that the West Midlands police are still 800 police officers short, the resource is just not there, so they are given a crime reference number, and that is it. That does not make people feel safe. The Minister is talking about youth crime and various initiatives, but youth services have been decimated. There is nowhere for young people to go, and there are no opportunities for good jobs or training, so they get exploited. Those are the kinds of things that young people need. They need hope and aspiration.

[Chris Philp]

Youth unemployment is of course a great deal lower today than it was under the last Labour Government. On resources and police numbers in the west midlands, as I mentioned, the police and crime commissioner in the west midlands has £51 million more this year than last year, so the hon. Lady ought to ask him, ideally publicly, what he is spending that money on, and why he is not addressing the issues that she raises.

I agree that car crime and other crimes affect the victim terribly. That is why police across the whole country, including of course in the west midlands, have committed to always following reasonable lines of inquiry where they exist, including in relation to car crime. A big technological change that we are already exploiting is retrospective facial recognition. If the victim has an image of an offender—a Ring doorbell image, a mobile phone photograph of someone taking a car, closed circuit television footage from a shop where shoplifting has occurred—even if the image is blurred or partially obscured, it can be run through the police national database for a match. The facial recognition algorithm is now extremely accurate. That is a way in which we are already catching a lot more criminals, including some involved in car crime.

I encourage victims who have a picture of a suspect to please give it to the police, because they have committed to always—not sometimes—running it through the facial recognition database; and they have committed to always—again, not sometimes—following up reasonable lines of inquiry where they exist. That is for all crimes, even crimes that some people would historically have considered minor. That commitment was made last September, and it is vital that the police deliver on it and support victims, for the reasons the hon. Lady set out.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Will the Minister give an example of where that technology has been used, because I have never known that to happen? When residents send images that seem to be blurred, the police are very clear that they cannot do anything with them. Can the Minister tell me how many forces are using the technology, and when there has been a conviction?

[Chris Philp]

I wonder how much longer I have, but the technology is being used across the whole country. This year, over 100,000—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. To answer the Minister’s question, he has until 7.30 pm, which is some 57 minutes away. How long his speech takes is of course a matter for his discretion; I am putting no pressure on him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I am tempted to use all 57 minutes, and I am sure the hon. Lady has interventions that would take up a fair chunk of that, but I will be a lot briefer, which I am sure will be popular with colleagues.

Retrospective facial recognition is being used thousands of times every month, and there are all kinds of examples of it being used successfully. For example, a murder was committed in a Coventry nightclub a couple of years ago, and the only piece of evidence was a photograph of the suspect taken in the nightclub. Running that through the police national database got a match, and the police went to the suspect’s address and found the suspect there, with clothes covered in the victim’s blood, and he has now been convicted. There are hundreds of examples just from the past few months of retrospective facial recognition being used. A photo that is blurred or dark can often be matched. Obviously there needs to be some sort of image that the police can look at, but it is remarkable to see the images that can now be matched, using that algorithm. I strongly encourage everybody to send images to the police. If the police do not run them through the facial recognition database, people should ask why and push the police to do so, because they have committed to doing that.

We now deploy live facial recognition in a way that allows suspects who are wandering around a high street or a train station to be identified and arrested. I have also mentioned technology such as knife scanning. Facial recognition has the potential, in the coming years and months—this is not a long way off; it is being used now—to transform how we catch criminals, so that we do a better job for victims.

The hon. Lady also asked about scrap metal. Interestingly enough, I had a meeting today with the all-party parliamentary group on metal, stone and heritage crime, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). Lord Birt, who is a member of the APPG from the Lords, also attended. We discussed what more we can do. Scrap metal theft is estimated at about £500 million a year. When the Scrap Metal Dealers Act was passed in 2013—it was a private Member’s Bill from my predecessor Sir Richard Ottaway—the figure was about £800 million a year, so the value has come down by more than a third since 2013, but we would like to go further.

The hon. Lady mentioned the NPCC group on metal theft; it is my intention to invite myself to that group and attend its next meeting, which I think is on 11 June, to press for more action in this area. The theft of catalytic converters and lead are the areas of most pressing concern.

The hon. Lady briefly mentioned shoplifting, which is a matter of extreme concern. The police have a national retail crime action plan, which includes a plan to target prolific shoplifters, and to follow reasonable lines of inquiry, including by always running the pictures from CCTV through the facial recognition database. The Government published our additional action plan just a couple of weeks ago, which includes a plan to meet the calls from Members of this House, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and others to create a stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker. That has been widely welcomed.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be relieved to hear that I am not taking up all 57 minutes. I have set out the actions that are being taken and, more importantly, the results that are being delivered. There are some disappointing trends in the west midlands, but I know the hon. Lady will take those up with the police and crime commissioner, Simon Foster, and will ask him what he is doing with the £51 million extra he has got this year. I will work constructively with her and other colleagues to make sure that our communities are kept safe.

Question put and agreed to.

Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Chris Philp Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff West on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill and for piloting it through its parliamentary stages with such aplomb and elan. His speech earlier describing the Bill and his amendment to it was comprehensive and accurate, so hon. Members will be relieved to hear that I do not think there is a great deal that I can usefully add to what he said.

All of us, on both sides of the Committee, share deep concern about what happened, particularly around the Euro 2020 finals, but that sort of practice did not just happen there; it is a more widespread problem. The measures in the Bill command the support of the police, the Football Association and the Premier League, so they will be welcomed by all those organisations and by football fans around the country. When football games are disrupted, it spoils the event for law-abiding members of the public going to see their team play, whether it is at Wembley, in Cardiff or anywhere else.

Given that the hon. Member for Cardiff West did such a good job explaining the provisions in the Bill, I do not want to test the Committee’s patience or indulgence by repeating what has already been said with such eloquence and flair. The Government fully support the Bill and are grateful to the hon. Member for his work. We look forward to seeing the Bill on the statute book and helping football fans across England and Wales to enjoy the fantastic national game.

[Kevin Brennan]

I thank the Minister for his support and his brevity in it, which I am sure is welcomed by everyone on the Committee. It is often said that everything has been said but not everyone has said it yet. However, the Minister broke that rule, which is welcome. I thank all my hon. Friends—they are my hon. Friends, from both sides of the House—for their contributions, and all other members of the Committee for being here. There is nothing else for me to add at this point.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Title

Amendment made: 1, in Title, line 1, leave out from “football matches” to “for which” in line 2.—(Kevin Brennan.)

This amendment would update the long title to reflect the fact that express provision is not required to enable a football banning order to be imposed following conviction of the new offence.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

UEFA 2024: Licensing Hours Extension

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

The Government have consulted on, and will be proceeding with, the proposal to make a contingent licensing hours order under section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003. This order will relax licensing hours in England and Wales for the 2024 UEFA European championship, subject to any of the competing home nation teams (England and Scotland) reaching the semi-final or final of the tournament.

The order will apply to premises already licensed until 11 pm for the sale of alcohol for consumption on the premises in England and Wales. The order will extend the licensing hours for such premises from 11 pm to 1 am the following day on the days of the semi-final (9 and/or 10 July) and final (14 July) of the tournament should the criteria of the contingent order be met.

The Government consider the semi-final and final of the tournament to be an occasion of exceptional national significance and an extension to licensing hours will enable communities to come together at their local licensed premises to support any of the home nation teams if they reach the later stages of the tournament and celebrate any subsequent success. This will also provide support to the hospitality sector by enabling businesses to extend their trading hours if they so wish.

The results of the consultation will be published on gov.uk. The Government are grateful to everyone who responded to the consultation. The order will be laid in Parliament in due course and an economic note will be published alongside it on legislation.gov.uk.

[HCWS443]

Stop and Search and Detention and Questioning

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

The Government are today launching a statutory consultation on revisions to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 Codes of Practice A and C. Strip search involving the exposure of intimate parts is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. The Government recognise that these powers are needed in order for the police to prevent harm and effectively investigate crime. However, it is vital that these powers are only used where necessary and proportionate, and that any such search is conducted in a fair and respectful manner, without unlawful discrimination, and with full regard for the welfare and dignity of the individual being searched.

These considerations are particularly important where the individual being searched is a child or vulnerable person. Findings by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the Children’s Commissioner for England, and the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children’s Partnership show that too often when strip searches involving the exposure of intimate parts are conducted, safeguarding and child protection have not been sufficiently prioritised.

The revisions proposed in this consultation are intended to strengthen the safeguards for children and vulnerable persons who are subject to searches involving the exposure of intimate parts, and emphasise the importance of safeguarding, without hindering the police’s ability to keep the public safe.

Code A concerns the exercise by police officers of statutory powers to search a person or a vehicle without first making an arrest. Code C concerns the detention, questioning and treatment of persons by police officers.

The proposed changes under consultation include the following:

A new requirement that any search of a child or vulnerable person involving the exposure of intimate parts conducted under stop and search power must be authorised by an officer of at least the rank of inspector.

A new requirement for police custody officers to consult an officer of at least the rank of inspector prior to conducting an EIP search of a child or vulnerable person in custody.

A requirement that if at any time an officer has reason to suspect that a person may be under 18, in the absence of clear evidence to dispel that suspicion, they shall be treated as a child for the purpose of the code and any other code.

A new requirement that police must, where practicable, notify a parent or guardian regarding an EIP search of a child, unless to do so would put the child at risk of harm.

An explicit reference to the safeguarding needs of any child who may be subject to an EIP search, and to the potentially traumatic impact that the search may have.

A new requirement to notify an officer of the rank of at least superintendent following any EIP of a child or vulnerable adult where, because of urgency, an appropriate adult was not present.

A new requirement that a safeguarding referral must be made whenever an EIP search of a child takes place.

A clarification that appropriate adults of the opposite sex can only be present during strip search if known to the detainee.

Replicating as far as is relevant in Code A the Code C provisions on the conduct of a strip search, to ensure that provisions on EIP searches in Code A are self-contained.

Requiring that where more than outer clothing is removed from a detainee in custody due to concerns for the detainee’s welfare, to preserve evidence, or any other reason set out in Code C paragraph 4.2, the appropriate provisions in Annex A shall apply.

The consultation will run for six weeks, and the Government will publish their response later this year. The consultation and Codes A and C are being published on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS433]

Productivity Within Policing

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

Today the Government have published our response to the independent policing productivity review.

Improving productivity across the public sector is a priority for this Government. Increasing the productivity of policing means ensuring our police officers are able to do their jobs effectively and stripping away the unnecessary barriers they face. This will free up police time so that officers are able to concentrate on frontline work, protecting the public, detecting crime, and catching criminals. This will make the public safer and allow them to feel safe, increasing confidence in policing, another priority for this Government.

In August 2022, the Home Office commissioned the National Police Chiefs’ Council to conduct an independent review of productivity in policing, providing clear, practical and deliverable recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness across the functions of policing. The review was published on 20 November 2023 and identified many opportunities for policing to improve productivity, with the potential to save 38 million hours of police officer time every year. That would be the equivalent of another 20,000 officers on our streets.

Our response sets out the Government’s support for the review and their recommendations. We have already announced investment of over £230 million at the spring Budget to drive productivity and performance improvements across policing. This will include additional investment into technology and innovation measures such as facial recognition, using drones as first responders, redaction, rapid video response, automated triage of 101 calls, knife detection and robotic process automation.

The Government will create a new Centre for Police Productivity, based in the College of Policing. This will be established from autumn 2024 and set the foundations necessary for policing to deliver the 38 million police officer hours identified by the independent review.

The Government are confident that policing will rise to the challenge of meeting the ambitions of the review’s recommendations. Our response outlines how we will support them in doing so.

A copy of the response to the policing productivity review will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and is available at www.gov.uk.

[HCWS422]

Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2024 Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Recovery of Crypto Assets and Investigations: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2024 Draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Terrorism Act 2000 (Certain Information Orders: Code of Practice) Regulations 2024 Draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Authorised Officers) Orders 2024

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 General Committees

[The Chair]

I will call the Minister to move the motion and speak to all the instruments. At the end of the debate, I will put the question on the first motion and then ask the Minister to move the remaining three motions formally.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Investigative Powers of Prosecutors: Code of Practice) Order 2024.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Recovery of Crypto Assets and Investigations: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2024, the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Terrorism Act 2000 (Certain Information Orders: Code of Practice) Regulations 2024, and the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Authorised Officers) Order 2024.

[Chris Philp]

It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The Government are committed to tackling all forms of economic crime. Decisive action has been taken by expediting the passage of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 through Parliament. The Home Office measures in that Act reform the unexplained wealth orders regime to improve transparency of ownership structures and allow more time for law enforcement to review material relating to unexplained wealth orders.

Building on the 2022 Act, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 contained a vast range of reforms to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and terrorist financing legislation, specifically the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and the Terrorism Act 2000. The reforms include powers to allow the effective seizure of both criminal and terrorist crypto assets, reforms to enable targeted information sharing to tackle money laundering and remove reporting burdens on businesses, new intelligence-gathering powers for law enforcement, and provisions to reform outdated criminal corporate liability laws.

The reforms to UWOs, corporate liability and targeted information sharing are, I am pleased to say, already in force. The new offence of failing to prevent fraud will be brought into force once Government guidance has been published and businesses have familiarised themselves with the guidance, which is being drafted. The majority of the remaining Home Office measures will be commenced on 26 April 2024—in just a couple of weeks’ time. Today we debate the statutory instruments that underpin the codes of practice for those measures. I do not intend to cover the content of the powers—they were debated extensively by both Houses during the passage of the 2023 Act. What we are doing here is simply legislating for the four codes of practice that are being revised and the two new ones being made.

A search, seizure and detention of property code is issued by the Home Secretary for officers in England and Wales to guide the exercise of search and seizure powers in the context of criminal confiscation investigations. There are two codes of practice to guide law enforcement in the use of search and seizure powers for both civil forfeiture and counter-terrorism investigations. One is issued under the 2002 Act and the other under the 2000 Act in relation to powers in the 2001 Act. These codes are also issued by the Home Secretary.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

The Minister refers to terrorism, but could he clarify whether that would capture state entities involved in state terror, such as the North Korean regime, which we know is involved extensively in cyber-crime?

[Chris Philp]

Terrorism is defined in those Acts and will be facts-specific. If an agent of a foreign Government committed certain acts on our soil and those acts fell within the definitions contained in the Terrorism Act 2000 or other terrorism legislation, the terrorism provisions would be engaged. Whether cyber-attacks conducted extraterritorially would meet those thresholds would be facts-specific; it would depend on the nature of the acts themselves. Clearly, acts by hostile states are of very significant concern and have in a number of cases been debated in Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Security and the Home Secretary are working very hard to counter those state threats, which emanate from a number of countries. The hon. Lady has mentioned one such country; others include Iran, China and Russia.

We are considering two codes to guide the exercise of powers to investigate suspected criminal property. One code is issued by the Home Secretary; the equivalent code for prosecutors is issued by the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland. The final code being introduced by these draft instruments is a new code to guide the National Crime Agency on the appropriate use of new information order powers, which is issued by the Home Secretary under both POCA 2002 and TAC 2000. The code clarifies the circumstances in which powers may be exercised to ensure that they are applied consistently, which is vital.

The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Terrorism Act 2000 mandate that the Secretary of State must publish a draft code, consider any representations made, and modify the draft in the light of such representations prior to laying revised codes. The draft codes we are debating today were subject to separate public consultations. Information on the consultations can be found in the explanatory memorandums accompanying the statutory instruments. Among other things, the codes support the recovery of crypto assets. We are concerned that criminals are increasingly using crypto assets to hide money that has arisen from criminal activities.

In conclusion—always the two most popular words I utter in a speech; I see the shadow Minister, who has suffered many such speeches, agrees enthusiastically —the four draft instruments are required to complete commencement of the Economic Crime Transparency and Enforcement Act 2022 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. This will ensure that all necessary legislation is in place and that there is legal certainty about how cases will be dealt with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Non-fungible tokens, the value of which, as the shadow Minister hinted, is somewhat volatile— I am not sure that I would recommend to anyone that they invest in NFTs—are covered. In fact, it is possible for the Secretary of State, via regulation-making powers and secondary legislation, to update the provisions on digital currencies or other things in the future in case there are forms of digital assets that we do not know about today that we may want to bring into scope in the future.

Paying compensation to victims, which was raised in an intervention, happens to an extent already. In the financial year 2022-23, about £15 million that had been recovered via confiscation orders was paid out to victims, so that is happening. However, I am sure that it could happen to an even greater extent, given how significant some of the online and crypto-related fraud is.

Capacity is discussed by the Security Minister with both the NCA and the City of London police, who lead on fraud nationally, on a regular basis. They try to recruit experts, obviously, but that can be difficult, because the kind of experts who are skilled in cryptocurrency-related matters command quite a high market price externally in the private sector. None the less, a lot of work is being done to ensure that that capacity is there. When the Home Secretary, the Security Minister and I have our regular meeting with the director general of the NCA in the next week or two, I can certainly repeat that question, but I know that the Security Minister is conscious of this and has worked on it.

In relation to the question posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon regarding the tracing of assets, although it is absolutely true to say that tracing crypto assets is harder than with a regular bank account —that is of course why criminals like using them—it is by no means impossible, particularly if relevant bits of hardware or certain access codes are obtained. I am sure members of the Committee can imagine that techniques are deployed that enable that to happen, which I will not elaborate on. Although it is harder than with a regular bank account or where money flows through the regular international payments system, it is not impossible by any means, and there are quite a few examples of where intercepts of various kinds or seizure of hardware have led to significant crypto asset recovery. In fact, a case may be coming before the courts in the not-too-distant future where an extremely large amount of crypto assets may be subject to recovery; I am sure that we will all read about that quite a bit in the coming few months. I trust that that answers the questions, and I once again commend the draft instruments to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

DRAFT PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT 2002 (SEARCH, RECOVERY OF CRYPTO ASSETS AND INVESTIGATIONS: CODES OF PRACTICE) REGULATIONS 2024

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Search, Recovery of Crypto Assets and Investigations: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2024.—(Chris Philp.)

DRAFT PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT 2002 AND TERRORISM ACT 2000 (CERTAIN INFORMATION ORDERS: CODE OF PRACTICE) REGULATIONS 2024

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Terrorism Act 2000 (Certain Information Orders: Code of Practice) Regulations 2024.—(Chris Philp.)

DRAFT TERRORISM ACT 2000 (CODE OF PRACTICE FOR AUTHORISED OFFICERS) ORDER 2024

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Code of Practice for Authorised Officers) Order 2024.—(Chris Philp.)