Crime: Birmingham, Edgbaston

Debate between Chris Philp and Preet Kaur Gill

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[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—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Preet Kaur Gill

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. For what reasons the proportion of rape cases that result in conviction has declined since 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)]

The latest CPS figures from the “Violence Against Women and Girls Report 2018-19” show that the conviction rate for those cases taken to court has increased from 58% in the previous year to 63% in the year ending March 2019. However, the number of cases reaching court, which peaked in 2015, has declined significantly, which is a substantial cause for concern. A number of steps are being taken to address that, including recruiting 20,000 extra police officers and giving the CPS £85 million a year in additional funding.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Many women, including many survivors of rape and sexual violence, have lost confidence in our justice system, due partly to the appallingly low rate of prosecution for rape. Women’s organisations are calling on the Government to launch a fully independent review of how the justice system handles rape cases. Will the Minister take this opportunity to join Labour in committing to deliver on that?

[Chris Philp]

A review by a sub-committee of the Criminal Justice Board is already under way and is due to report in spring next year—in just a few months’ time. That will be accompanied by an action plan, which is clearly needed, as the hon. Lady’s question pointed out. Just a few weeks ago, the Government announced additional funding for the victims of sexual violence; that extra £5 million a year is a 50% increase, bringing annual spending to £13 million a year to support victims of these crimes in exactly the way that the hon. Lady rightly describes.