Crime and Policing Bill (Fourth sitting)

David Burton-Sampson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)]

I find myself agreeing with the shadow Minister on the menace that unauthorised, misused motorised vehicles cause to our society. Untaxed bikes are roaring through our housing estates. Just this weekend, I was taking my dog for a walk and three untaxed motorbikes were roaring up and down the road, where there were young children and families walking along. My dog got scared every time they went past.

These vehicles are a real menace. Illegal e-scooters whizz along the pavements. In Basildon, in south Essex, two young people were killed on an illegal e-scooter only recently. That is really sad: two young children had their lives ended on one of these illegal e-scooters. Modified electric bikes are also being dangerously driven on our roads. In my constituency, this is very much an urban problem, but the problem exists in different forms in rural areas. It affects all communities in one way or another.

There is also the issue of crime associated with illegal bikes and illegal e-scooters. The shadow Minister has lots of ideas on how to solve this problem, but during the last year of the Conservative Government, there were an average of 214 snatch thefts, often facilitated by e-bikes and e-scooters, every day on our streets in England and Wales. That was a 150% increase on the previous year. That shows the former Government’s massive disregard for law and order. The Conservative party now comes here with ideas for improvement, but we are actually taking action to stop this problem.

The fact that a warning is needed before these ridiculous illegal vehicles are seized creates an element of immunity for users—if they are going to get a warning, they will keep trying to push their luck—so I welcome the removal of that requirement. It is time to get tough in this area and give the police the powers they need to act promptly.

[Harriet Cross]

I completely agree that it is time to get serious about this issue. Will the hon. Member support our new clause that would give police the power to confiscate these vehicles from people’s houses?

[David Burton-Sampson]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point, but the key is to get these vehicles as soon as they are spotted on the streets.

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

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Where the community comes in is a game changer, because it is all about intelligence. What will make the difference in seizing these off-road bikes is the police working with our local authorities and communities.

[David Burton-Sampson]

Absolutely. I could not have said it better myself.

We need to get this provision into law as quickly as possible, as part of this whole raft of changes. The police need to be able to act promptly when they see these ridiculous vehicles causing so many problems on our roads and in our communities.

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

These vehicles are also having a huge impact in Riverview and Coldharbour, in my community. The police have been doing some good work with drones to follow these people to their home addresses. With the change in the law to allow police to seize the vehicles straight away, does my hon. Friend think that such interventions could support the police and communities in cracking down on the problem?

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[David Burton-Sampson]

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. Over the past couple of weeks, Essex police has focused particularly on using similar techniques to drive down the use of illegal e-scooters.

It is time to get tough. We need to act promptly when we come across these perpetrators and get these vehicles off the road. I am pleased with the change to the law that will be made by clause 8.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

First, I express general support for the clause. I welcome the measures to combat this menace in our communities, which we have heard about in the room here today and also in the Chamber on Second Reading. We have not only the risk of the antisocial behaviour itself, but the enabled crime that it is linked to such as phone snatching and similar offences. Again, it is welcome to try to reduce those incidents where possible.

This weekend, I was in a discussion with a resident who talked about the impact of illegal off-road bikes in Overton Park in my constituency. They talked about their fear that if one of those vehicles hit their child—they are often not even full-sized off-road vehicles, but small, children’s off-road bikes—it could cause serious injury. There is a real fear among residents.

We also have an issue around illegal e-bikes being driven on our high streets, often in zones shared between pedestrians and cycles. Heavier, illegally modified bikes are used often by food delivery companies that absolve themselves of any responsibility because the bikers are all independent contractors or independent riders. The companies take no responsibility and have no interest in cracking down, so enforcement is left to the local police. They have problems spotting whether the vehicles are illegally modified and then there is the issue of police resources. Many of us sound like a broken record on this: the powers are all very well, but the challenge is actually having the resources in our neighbourhood policing units to enforce them.

I have a concern not only linked to the manpower required to police the bikes, but on some of the details and practicalities of the powers, so I would welcome further details from the Minister. Will there be any process of appeal for the individual if the bike or vehicle is taken away in the first instance without a warning? Would it just be down to a single officer who says a particular offence is antisocial? I have had people contact me with concerns because they have been stopped in a vehicle for fast acceleration or for driving in a particular way on a single occasion. They worry that under the powers granted in the Bill their vehicle could be immediately confiscated. They feel that the powers might be misused by individual police officers, so there is a concern over that process, and how the power given to a police officer can be used in a single instance.

Would vehicles be fully traced and tracked to see whether they are stolen? We should ensure that we do not crush or dispose of vehicles that can be returned to their owners. Would the powers be enforced on the owner alone? If a vehicle had been taken without permission or was being used without the knowledge of the owner, would there be a process to ensure that the vehicle was not used again without the understanding of the owner? The removal and disposal would seem to be an overreach in that circumstance.

On the timescale of disposal and how that would be done, I heard the concerns about the immediate re-selling of vehicles back to the wrong ’uns they were taken off in the first place. It is a valid concern. Will that disposal mean cubing it and putting it in the recycling, or does it mean selling it on? What constraints will be put on the police to deal with vehicles that are taken?

My understanding of the current guidance is that warnings are necessary only where repeated tickets are impractical. Can the Minister talk about where the existing description of “where impractical” is insufficient for police officers? In discussions with the police, I imagine that the phrase “where impractical” has been identified as problematic. Can we draw out a bit why it is causing issues?

There is a question around whether the powers would apply to problem areas, particularly in central London where high-powered, very expensive vehicles have been reported as causing noise nuisance and alarm to local residents. We have all read stories of vehicles being imported from the middle east by foreign owners, and these vehicles causing noise nuisance in central London, in the Kensington and Chelsea areas. Would the powers allow those vehicles, which are often very high-value vehicles, to be taken without a warning in the first place? I think there is an appetite from many for that to be the case, but there would be concerns over the sheer value of those vehicles and how the police would deal with that.

I find some of the new clauses interesting and there is actually a lot of sense in many of them. Again, I would be interested to hear the Minister explain why each power they provide for is either undesirable or already covered in the Bill.

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[Anna Sabine]

Broadly speaking, we welcome any effort to reduce knife crime, which is obviously a terrible and growing problem. We note Chief Constable De Meyer’s comment, in the oral evidence last week, that the police felt that the measure would allow them to deliver more sustained public protection, which is a good thing, and to have more preventive power. That is all great.

I have two specific questions for the Minister. The first concerns the offence of possessing an article with a blade or an offensive weapon with the intent to use unlawful violence. I represent a fairly rural constituency that comprises some market towns and a selection of villages. Even there, local headteachers tell me that a growing number of schoolchildren, usually boys, are bringing knives into school, because they wrongly think that bringing a knife will somehow defend them against other boys with knives. How do we ensure that no other schoolchildren will get caught up in an offence aimed at the kind of people we might think of as bringing a knife with the aim of committing an unlawful action?

My second question relates to the National Farmers Union’s evidence from last week. The NFU talked about the challenge of catapults often being used not just in wildlife crime but in damaging farming equipment. It said that it understands that it is an offence to carry in public something that is intended to be used as an offensive weapon, but with catapults, it is particularly difficult to prove that intent. It wondered if more consideration could be given to listing catapults as offensive weapons.

[David Burton-Sampson]

We all know that knife crime ruins lives—for the victim, their family and friends, the perpetrator’s family, and even for the perpetrator. My constituent Julie Taylor is the grandmother of a knife crime victim. On 31 January 2020, Liam Taylor was murdered outside a pub in Writtle—a pleasant place that not many would associate with violent crime. Four individuals approached Liam and three of them attacked him, resulting in Liam being stabbed to death and his friend receiving a serious injury. The attack came in retaliation for an earlier incident, which neither Liam nor his friend were involved in.

Since Liam’s murder, Julie has become an amazing campaigner in the battle against knife crime. She regularly visits schools, universities, colleges, football clubs, scout groups and the like to share Liam’s story and highlight how knife crime destroys lives. She has placed over 500 bleed control bags and 26 bleed control units in key locations across Essex. Sadly, 12 of those have already been used to help 13 people—yes, there was a double stabbing. Her work is all voluntary; she does it in her free time. That is how passionately she feels about the issue. When we met last week, Julie told me:

“All I want is to stop these young people carrying weapons as I can tell you once you lose a loved one to any violent crime, your family is never the same again.”

I shared with Julie the Government’s plans to tackle knife crime through the Bill, and she was delighted. She told me that clauses 10 and 11—and, if the Committee will indulge me, clause 12—are what campaigners have been calling for for so long.

With 1,539 knife crimes taking place in Essex in the year to March 2024 alone, tough action is needed now. These clauses, alongside other measures, will help with the Government’s goal of halving knife crime over the next decade. We must take a truly multi-agency approach, working with the police, charities, young people, victims’ family members, like Julie—they have a real part to play—and businesses, tech companies and sports organisations. I thank the Government for introducing the clauses; they have my full support.

[Joe Robertson]

I find myself again speaking after a number of others who have spoken eloquently, and broadly with consensus, about the direction of travel of this provision. I obviously support amendment 39 and new clause 44. Knife crime and the way it destroys lives is such a specific and horrific problem for law enforcement. The hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh gave a good summary of those affected, including young perpetrators and their families. Through using knives at a young age, those perpetrators often get swept into the worst of criminality. Once they are in that world, it is incredibly difficult for them to be brought out of it. Of course, there can be numerous innocent victims, who might stand in the way and get hurt too. I urge the Government to understand that the best possible way of tackling this is to ensure that the courts have the strongest possible sentencing powers. Clearly, 14 years for possessing an offensive weapon would not be appropriate in all cases, but there are cases where it would be—and if the courts do not have those powers, they cannot sentence people to 14 years.