Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Debate between Chris Philp and Kevin Brennan

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Kevin Brennan

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I share my hon. Friend’s view. As the former Attorney General my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) pointed out a few minutes ago, there were a number of bases on which the police could have acted to prevent that projection. Big Ben is not a canvas for political campaigning, particularly where the slogans are deeply offensive in nature, and that is a view I have made very clear to the commissioner.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Last week, I raised on a point of order the case of my constituent Marte Prenga and her two-year-old daughter, who are stuck overseas, and I was assured that those on the Treasury Bench would pass on to Home Office Ministers the details of their plight. Can I please have a meeting with an Immigration Minister, as this issue is still unresolved?

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Debate between Chris Philp and Kevin Brennan

Committee stage
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure once again to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. Let me start by expressing my very warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham on the work that he has done in developing and bringing forward this Bill with a great deal of conscientiousness, perseverance and, most important of all, charm. That is a quality not universally present, I have to say—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] But it is certainly well represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. He has done a very good job of talking the Committee through the operative provisions of the Bill, so I do not propose to repeat what he has already said so eloquently, other than to make it clear that the Government very strongly support these measures, for the reasons that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have eloquently and powerfully set out. Clearly, agricultural communities the length and breadth of the United Kingdom are affected by ATV theft, and the provisions in the Bill will help us to combat that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said, the operative provisions of the Bill will be enacted via secondary legislation, so the principal thing that I would like to say is that work on preparing those regulations is happening at the moment. It is happening in parallel with the preparation of the Bill, so, as quickly as possible after commencement of the Bill, we will be able to bring forward the relevant statutory instruments to enact the provisions that we have been debating. That work is happening.

What I would mostly like to say, however, is that I have certainly heard the powerful opinions expressed on Second Reading, and again this morning in Committee, about a strong desire on both sides of the House to consider expanding the scope of the statutory instruments beyond just all-terrain vehicles to look at other agricultural equipment and also tradespeople’s tools. We have all had reports of often quite valuable tools being stolen from tradespeople’s vans. As hon. Members have said, that is not just a financial loss; it prevents tradespeople from working, sometimes for a number of days, which disrupts building projects and causes loss of earnings at a time when people obviously are struggling to make ends meet, so I am very powerfully seized of the need to look at that. I have asked Home Office officials to work on developing the statutory instruments to address it as well as doing the work on ATVs. That work is ongoing; they are doing the technical work to look at it at the moment, so I cannot make an absolute commitment that it will be done at the same time, but my starting position is that if we are going to bring forward statutory instruments under the Bill to deal with ATVs, why not do the other tools at the same time?

There may be some technical reason that I am not aware of why that is very difficult, but my starting position is that we should do both of them, or all of them, at the same time, later on this calendar year, so I will do whatever I can, as Minister, to try to make sure we do all of that. As I said, I am due to get some further advice on it, so there may be some technical elements that I am not aware of or some other arguments that get brought forward, but that is my intention, and it sounds like it has support on both sides of the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

It is extremely helpful that the Minister has put that on the record. However, will he confirm that if it proves that there are any technical obstacles to his being able to include that other equipment in the regulations, he will nevertheless stick to the timetable he just set and bring forward regulations on quad bikes and so on before Christmas?

[Chris Philp]

Yes. The intention is to do it as a minimum for ATVs. As I said, given how strong feelings are on both sides of the House, as expressed on Second Reading and in Committee this morning, I would like us to try to find a way to make it work. I know that Home Office officials are working on that at the moment. When my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and I spoke to the police superintendent responsible for fighting crime in this area, he was also supportive of going further.

Serious Criminal Cases Backlog

Debate between Chris Philp and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Witnesses and victims, particularly in connection with offences such as domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, are very vulnerable and the experience is very traumatising. Often, going through a court process re-traumatises victims, who have often suffered terrible crimes. It is our duty as a justice system to support, protect and look after those victims as they go through the process.

We recognise that that needs investment, which is why we are spending an extra £25 million this year over and above previous plans, and an additional £32 million next year, specifically to support, protect and look after witnesses and victims. We are investing in things such as additional ISVAs, who can help support victims as they go through reliving awful crimes. I entirely concur with my hon. Friend’s sentiment, and we are doing everything possible, including putting in lots of extra money, to achieve the objectives that he points to.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab) [V]]

I listened very carefully to the response the Minister gave and this really is not a time for bragging. My very elderly constituent, whose case the Minister knows about through correspondence between us, has been waiting for four years to have a case of alleged fraud come to court. She and her family want justice to be done during her lifetime. That is what they are telling me. The system is clearly not working. It will not be fixed by bragging, but by investment, real reform and perhaps a little bit of ministerial humility.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Debate between Chris Philp and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

We hear that message loud and clear. We understand the anger at those illegal, dangerous and unnecessary crossings, and we will do whatever it takes to stop them, including working with the source countries and the upstream countries in the way my hon. Friend has just described.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

To understand the scale, am I right in saying that the number of asylum applications in the UK in the most recent year for which figures are available was 35,566; the number of asylum applications on the most recent figures available in France was 114,500; and that for the same period in Germany, the figure was 161,900?