Crime and Policing Bill

Damien Egan Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damien Egan (Bristol North East) (Lab)]

I am very happy to be able to speak and to add my support to this Bill, and I appreciate the depth and ambition of the measures that have been brought forward.

When I meet my local police officers in Bristol and South Gloucestershire, I see a committed group of men and women completely dedicated to public service, but I also see that morale is low. Police numbers in Avon and Somerset have fallen, with the number of PCSOs dropping from 424 in 2010 to 255 today. After 14 years of cuts, officers question if they are appreciated. For our police, I hope that this Bill is seen as a demonstration of the confidence that we have in them and the respect we have for the difficult job they do.

I welcome the steps taken to let police get on with their jobs, including searching premises where phones are geolocated, confiscating illegal road bikes and introducing respect orders, as well as lifting the £200 cap on when officers will investigate shoplifting. There are also the new protections for shop workers such as the women I have met working in Boots in Kingswood and the PDSA—People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals—charity shop in Kingswood, which are just two of the shops blighted day in and day out by shoplifters.

On a different aspect of the Bill, we have seen the struggles and confusion in relation to policing public order at protests. Protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, but we have seen examples of protests that have become hateful, have incited violence and have become violent. Fines for climbing on war memorials and banning face coverings will help maintain public order, and I hope the police know that they have our support to act when they see wrongdoing. As the Bill progresses, I would ask Ministers to consider how robust the exemptions are for face coverings, as they may be open to misuse. For example, the health exemptions could have very broad interpretations.

On knife crime, officers in my patch certainly welcome the changes, but they are concerned about how unscrupulous knife manufacturers could adapt to selling knives that, while technically legal, still glamorise violence. In the past year, I have got to know a woman called Hayley Ryall, the mother of Mikey Roynon from Kingswood, who was tragically killed at a birthday party when he was stabbed by three young men in June 2023. Mikey was a beautiful young man, and he was just 16 when he was killed. With the ongoing trials of serious violence reduction orders in Thames Valley, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Sussex coming to their conclusion this year, Hayley has asked me when a decision will be made on the wider roll-out of serious violence reduction orders and when that will take place.

All these measures will only have the full effect if we have the officers on our streets to police them. Avon and Somerset recently received a £27 million uplift in funding, and I look forward to seeing this money used for more recruitment and to support our existing officers. There is much to fix—we all know that—and these measures go a good way to putting the balance of power back towards law and order.