Crime and Policing Bill

Clive Jones Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tristan Osborne]

I could not concur more. Police funding and police officer numbers have resulted in fewer fines being issued for many types of crime. In fact, the Bill will give the police more powers to challenge nuisance biking and other offences. The Bill is an absolutely necessary first step.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

On Saturday, I visited quite a few retailers in Wokingham. There was no police presence at all in the town, despite crime occurring hourly in our shops. Someone is always shoplifting. Thames Valley police has only 198 police officers per 100,000 people, which is well below the national average of 245. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that is not enough?

[Tristan Osborne]

I agree that insufficient police numbers in recent years resulted in a shoplifters’ charter under the last Government, when people were allowed to shoplift up to a set amount.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for her Westminster Hall debate last week, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for his ten-minute rule Bill on nuisance biking. The number of reckless bikers and boy racers who tear through our streets and churn up our parks has significantly increased in previous years. Under the previous Government, the weak section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 effectively allowed these bikers to get away with a slap on the wrist.

I welcome the measures in this Bill that will allow these vehicles to be seized, which will send a message that those who are caught with these vehicles will lose that asset immediately. Kent police called for these powers when I went on an operation in November and witnessed the cat-and-mouse tactics of perpetrators and the resources needed to impose these extremely weak penalties.

Knife crime has surged since 2010 and disproportionately affects younger people. The Bill gives the police new stop-and-search powers in high-crime areas, allowing law enforcement to be much more proactive in intercepting potential threats. I welcome this measure, specifically in areas of high knife crime in the urban centres of Chatham and Aylesford.

The digital age has produced new avenues for crime. As many colleagues have mentioned, that includes child sexual exploitation, as well as exploitation and violence against women. The Bill will introduce more powers to challenge stalkers and strengthen protections against child sexual exploitation. I am a former teacher, and I had to look at safeguarding cases involving online activity on a weekly basis. Without these additional powers, it will be increasingly difficult to catch the malign influences that are harming our young people.

I believe that the Bill will also enhance police transparency and accountability. It improves police training, focusing on de-escalation techniques and mental health awareness. It equips officers with the skills necessary to handle a wide range of situations with sensitivity and professionalism. We know police officers do this every day, but we also know that the diversity of challenges they face requires new training.

As colleagues have said so eloquently, domestic violence is often a hidden crime that leaves victims feeling trapped and powerless to escape. The Bill strengthens the legal framework for protecting victims by introducing new provisions for protective orders, including the ability to ban a perpetrator from returning to a victim’s home even before their trial. It also mandates better support for victims, offering increased access to legal and social services.

This Bill is not just about laws; it is about lives, safer streets, protecting communities, and justice that truly serves the people. It represents a forward-thinking, balanced approach to law and order and public safety. It provides our police with the powers they need to combat crime, supports our justice system to deliver fair and effective sentences, promotes greater community engagement and, most importantly, ensures that victims of crime and our communities receive the care and protection they deserve.

[Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to support the Bill, which will be welcomed in urban and rural communities across Buckingham and Bletchley. Given the time constraints, I will focus my remarks on part 3, on the protection of retail workers.

I have a particular interest in Britain’s 3.5 million retail workers, not least because my mum is one of them, having worked on the shop floor at Morrisons for over 20 years. During that time, she has seen it all—the good, the bad and the ugly. In my conversations with her, particularly over the last decade, two themes have become much more prevalent, and they have already been raised by Members on both sides of the House.

The first theme is the increasingly casual and habitual nature of shoplifting and other retail crime. Data from the British Retail Consortium suggests that this is already costing businesses across the country more than £2 billion a year. In the Thames Valley police area, retail crime rose by over a third between April 2023 and February 2024. This year alone, the Co-op store in Winslow has faced two violent raids aiming to remove its cash machine. This is not just petty crime; too often, it is organised. It is this kind of emboldened criminality that must be stopped. Such activity is not just a blot on a company’s balance sheet; it punishes good-faith customers and demoralises the workers, who take pride in the work that they do. That is why I welcome the repeal of section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, to finally call time on Britain’s open invitation to criminals to steal goods worth £200 or less.

Secondly, I want to touch on the growing occurrence of abuse and the threat of violence faced by too many shop workers in their workplace. In a 2024 survey of USDAW members, more than two thirds of retail workers revealed they had been verbally abused, almost half had been threatened, and one in five had been physically assaulted while doing their job. That is clearly totally intolerable. Nobody in this country should go to work fearing for their own physical safety. I believe that we in this House, with our security guards and our armed police, have a particular duty to ensure that those who work in our shops feel just as safe as we do.

[Clive Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Callum Anderson]

I will not, just because there is so little time and too many people want to speak.

That is why the Bill’s introduction of the new offence of assaulting a retail worker is so important. It is also why I welcome the new respect orders, which will give the courts the power to ban repeat offenders from retail premises. Ultimately, this is a Bill that delivers for retail workers and ensures they are given the respect and dignity they deserve. That is why I will be supporting it tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

I begin my remarks by reflecting on the non-attendance throughout the debate of Reform MPs. It appears that they spend more time these days litigating against each other than they do legislating in this place.

When I knock on doors in Crewe and Nantwich or sit in my constituency surgery, I too often meet people who live in perpetual fear in their own community. The thing that those people have in common is that they want to see neighbourhood policing restored, and I am proud that this Government are committed to doing that. Anybody with a set of eyes could see that neighbourhood policing was decimated under the previous Government, despite what the shadow Home Secretary said earlier.

[Clive Jones]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Connor Naismith]

I will not, because I am conscious that others wish to get in.

My constituents also tell me that they want to feel as if the police are equipped with the powers that they need to grip the problems that leave people fearful on the streets or, worse, in their homes. Rising antisocial behaviour has been a scourge on our streets, affecting my constituents’ businesses, their livelihoods and even their health.

A young woman contacted me recently about the young males who make her and her children’s lives a misery by bomb-knocking and kicking her door in the evenings, and shouting “bitch” as they pass her home. My constituent Steve told me at my constituency surgery over the weekend that his family’s life is being made a living hell by a small number of social housing tenants, and the housing provider has so far failed to take any action to address that. That is why I fully support the introduction of respect orders, which will allow a number of agencies, including housing providers, to place restrictions on that kind of behaviour.

I declare an interest: I started my working life as a shop worker, first in Woolworths—yes, I am old enough—and then in betting shops, a part of the retail sector that has, unfortunately, never been a stranger to violence and intimidation for workers. However, as I found out when I met James, the manager of my local Co-operative store in Crewe, brazen crime and the intimidation of shop workers have become commonplace, even in our local convenience stores.

I believe that the Bill will make a lasting difference to the lives of my constituents. Business owners, workers and decent law-abiding people just want to live in a community where they feel safe. These powers are ambitious, and we must ensure that they deliver real, lasting change for the people who need it most.

Crime and Policing Bill

Clive Jones Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)]

When people talk about feeling safe where they live, they are talking not about spreadsheets or crime statistics, but about whether they feel okay walking home at night, whether their local shops can open their doors without worrying about theft or abuse, and whether, when something does go wrong, the law actually backs them up. That is why the Crime and Policing Bill really matters.

I am pleased to welcome the Bill, because it tackles the issues that my constituents raise time and again: antisocial behaviour, abuse of retail workers, the need for visible neighbourhood policing and stronger action on serious harm, including violence against women and girls. They make up one of the most significant packages on crime and policing in decades. This Bill is about restoring public confidence and making our streets safer.

I will speak to Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 333, relating to antisocial behaviour and closure powers. In Leigh and Atherton, as in many towns, so-called dodgy shops have become an all too familiar feature of struggling high streets. Illicit premises selling illegal goods, undercutting lawful businesses and operating in plain sight undermine confidence and damage communities, as we have already heard, but what is striking is not the lack of effort from enforcement bodies—far from it—but the limits of the current system. Again and again, action is taken, evidence is gathered and closure orders are secured, only for the same premises to reopen shortly afterwards under a new name. That revolving door problem makes lasting change incredibly difficult.

As we have heard, local authorities, trading standards and police forces often spend months building cases and navigating court processes, yet the maximum closure period remains just three months. For those determined to break the law, that is simply not a sufficient deterrent. Legitimate businesses are left trying to compete fairly while criminals carry on. Communities see it happening and are rightly frustrated, while confidence in enforcement and in the fairness of the system starts to slip.

This issue cannot be solved in isolation. If we are serious about restoring our high streets, we need a joined-up approach that stops illicit operators from taking root in the first place. The Government are moving in the right direction, with Pride in Place funding, strengthened trading standards, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the forthcoming high streets strategy all forming important pieces of the puzzle. Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 333 is another: it gives the Secretary of State the power through regulations to amend the maximum duration of closure orders, with the flexibility to treat different types of premises differently. That pragmatic step will allow consultation and evidence-led change. However, that flexibility must not become hesitation.

I would welcome clarity from the Government on the timeline for consultation, because enforcement that does not stick is not enforcement at all. Our high streets cannot afford that delay. Will the Minister confirm that the amendment sits within a wider ongoing programme of work bringing together enforcement, regulation and stronger powers where needed so that this is not the end of the conversation but the start of a robust approach? Our high streets deserve nothing less. With that reassurance, the amendment will be a necessary step in restoring credibility to enforcement and signalling that the Government are serious about bringing confidence, fairness and pride back to our high streets.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I will speak to Lords amendment 312 on cumulative disruption. I am deeply alarmed by the amendment, which would require senior police officers to take into account any so-called cumulative impacts of frequent protests on local areas when considering whether to impose conditions on public processions and assemblies. In short, the Government are giving the police unprecedented powers to restrict or prohibit protests that they expect to be too disruptive. That is an unacceptable attack on our democracy. These powers represent a significant expansion of state authority and risk undermining long-standing democratic freedoms. They also set a dangerous precedent for the suppression of dissent and inhibit people’s legitimate right to peaceful protest.

With the rise of the right in this country, that expansion of power leaves the potential for future Governments to misuse them to suppress and stamp out all forms of protest, strikes and demonstrations. Our fundamental right to peaceful protest, which has existed for many years, must be safeguarded against any attempt to constrict it.

[Kim Johnson]

Although I support many elements of this Bill, I cannot support Lords amendment 312. The Bill has come back to the Commons without the proper scrutiny it requires and, despite repeated requests, Ministers have failed to provide that. The Bill returns to this House with a troubling number of late changes made in the Lords that severely limit our ability to examine major amendments, especially those that impact the fundamental right to protest—a right that has already been significantly eroded in recent years due to a number of pieces of draconian legislation.

I rise in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) in his motion to reject amendment 312, which is supported by 30 MPs. We have pushed hard for a vote today on the proposals, which will have a far-reaching, draconian impact on our civil liberties. I am disappointed that the motion will not be reached, demonstrating a fundamental failure of the democratic process.

Lords amendment 312 would give police new powers to restrict protests on the basis of so-called cumulative disruption, but what does that actually mean? It is about giving them the discretion to limit or fully ban a demonstration based on the combined impact of multiple protests over time. The move is the latest in a series of anti-protest measures introduced by successive Governments in recent years, and I have to say that, as a Labour MP, I am very disappointed with the draconian anti-protest proposals being pushed by this Government.