Crime and Policing Bill

David Mundell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I inform the House that I plan to call the Minister at 3.50 pm, which would give the remaining Members bobbing about five minutes each.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I rise to support amendment 19, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson). I hope that the Minister listened to the compelling case that my hon. Friend made, and to the compelling case made by the hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) on the issue of spiking more generally.

I want to put on record my support for my constituents, Colin and Mandy Mackie, and their organisation, Spike Aware UK. I do not think any of us can fully comprehend their experience: the police knocked on their door to tell them that their 18-year-old son had died at college from a drug overdose, but they subsequently found out that his non-alcoholic drink had been spiked by five ecstasy tablets. As other Members have said, there was no support or help for the family in that situation. The police assumed that he had died of a drug overdose although they did not know that, and they subsequently apologised to the Mackies for their treatment of them.

What I particularly admire about Colin and Mandy is how they have focused their efforts on ensuring that their experience is not shared by anyone else. That is why I very much welcome the inclusion of spiking in the Bill, which is a continuation from the Criminal Justice Bill introduced in the previous Parliament. The point to be made is about certainty, and the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East brings certainty to the situation. I have been in this House with previous Ministers who have been told by officials that spiking was already covered by legislation, and therefore there was no need for specific mention of spiking.

[Wendy Morton]

On that point, will my right hon. Friend give way?

[David Mundell]

Given the strictures on time, I had better not.

Previous Ministers said that there was no need for specific legislation on spiking, because it was already covered. Campaigning, including by your colleague, Madam Deputy Speaker, the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), and by my former colleague, Richard Graham, demonstrated that there was a need for a specific measure, and that if we are going to have a specific measure, it needs to bring certainty.

Part of that certainty is for the benefit of the police and others. The police should know that that reckless behaviour is also a crime, and there should not be any dubiety when they arrive at a venue to find someone in a partially conscious state or unable to articulate what has happened to them. It will also allow campaigning to be clear that whatever the circumstances, a drink is spiked or a person is injected, and that is a crime. Amendment 19—or perhaps another amendment that the Government might bring forward in the other place—would bring clarity, which is important. That is what we need to bring about. As the hon. Member for Hitchin said, that can lead to the greater training of the police and NHS workers to be able to support people in a spiking situation. I hope the Minister will reflect on everything that has been said today.

The final point I will make relates particularly to Scotland. We need to have a common approach across the UK; it should not matter whether somebody is spiked in Glasgow, Manchester or Cardiff. That is not to disrespect the devolution settlement and the different approaches of the criminal justice system. The effect and the impact should be the same wherever people are, and the criminality should most certainly be the same, whether the behaviour is intentional or reckless.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

In the interests of time, I will skip through the many amendments I want to support, but there are a few that will really make a difference to people in Milton Keynes Central.

First, I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) said on street racing. Unfortunately, we had a Formula 1 driver who said that his success was based on practising on the grid roads of Milton Keynes, which really encouraged loads of people to decide to race there.

In terms of stalking and spiking, the most egregious bit of spiking for me is the premeditation—sourcing the materials, bringing them to the venue then using them on a person. That is not a crime done on the spur of the moment: significant premeditation comes into it.

One of the major issues we have had in Milton Keynes is organised begging outside our shopping centre. It is organised by gangs. People often look like they are homeless, or they are assumed to be homeless by caring residents in Milton Keynes, but in reality they are housed by the council, and they are exploited. They have a rota for which corner or which shop they can each sit in front of during which period of time, and the majority of the proceeds that people donate go to an organised crime network. Those individuals are being exploited in other ways as well. New clause 53 is so important in addressing this issue as the real, true crime that it is—not the crime of the people begging but of those organising the begging.

I also rise in support of new clause 55, which is on special measures for witnesses, particularly around youth justice. That is very important. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), many people who experience sexual abuse do not come forward for years and years, so new clause 59, which would remove limitations, is really important.

Let me address a couple of other things in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) made such an important speech considering domestic abuse, and she explained it very well. New clause 71 is about barred persons not having employment in law enforcement. We must recognise that, following the case of Sarah Everard, confidence in law enforcement is at an all-time low. When people call law enforcement because they have experienced domestic abuse, sexual harassment, rape or stalking, they are at their most vulnerable and they need to know that the people responding to those incidents—no matter which law enforcement service—will treat them according to the law, and not with some of their own natural biases, as we have seen.

That brings me to my final point. In terms of confidence in policing, we need to ensure that all law enforcement is done with clarity of law, not because of particular campaigning, as we have seen with the enforcement of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which we will debate later.