Rural Crime

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you this afternoon, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) on securing this debate, as well as on his private Member’s Bill, which is before the House. I am grateful for how clearly he set out the serious nature of rural crime, particularly the involvement of organised criminal gangs. I am also grateful for the contributions of all Members to this debate, which has shown great insight; Members’ passion for this issue has been very clear.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) mentioned the theft of a quad bike and chainsaw, and almost every Member who spoke in the debate mentioned such thefts. My hon. Friends the Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) and for Redditch (Chris Bloore) spoke with a lot of knowledge of fly-tipping. They and a number of Members asked what more we can do to tackle fly-tipping.

I will take away some of the challenges that have been raised in this debate on fly-tipping, but I want to refer to the provisions in the Crime and Policing Bill, which had its First Reading this week. Through that Bill, there will be a power to issue statutory guidance to ensure consistency and robust enforcement of fly-tipping, but I very much hear the concerns about organised criminals who are involved and whether the Environment Agency is the most appropriate enforcement body. I will certainly write to respond to hon. Members’ concerns about fly-tipping.

We all thank the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) for his work on the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act. We are working hard on the statutory instrument that is needed, and I will say something about that in a moment. As the Policing Minister, I am also concerned to hear his comments on the thefts around Chequers. We also heard from the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) about the particular effect in her constituency. She spoke about hare coursing, which other hon. Members also raised.

The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer) raised the funding issue. I fully accept that many are concerned about it, and I will say something about it in a moment. He also talked about the use of technology such as AI and drones, which is important in not just urban areas but rural areas.

Other issues, which we did not really touch on today, include domestic abuse and sexual exploitation, which are a problem in both rural and urban areas. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) gave us the Scottish perspective, and talked about the need for cross-border work between Police Scotland and English police forces.

It is clear that this issue is important to many hon. Members and their constituents, and I take it very seriously as well. I visited North Yorkshire two weeks ago and had the privilege of meeting farmers who had been subject to farm thefts and lost quad bikes, and we talked about how that made them feel. There is the issue of safety and security, but these thefts are also a loss to their businesses. I also talked to farmers who are seeing hare coursing in their fields, crops destroyed and gates damaged about how they felt about that. I fully recognise that these are important issues.

I also met the officers who were policing that area in rural North Yorkshire, and one thing that struck me was that they talked about how the community—although it was dispersed—wanted to work with the police. Because of the nature of the geographical area they have to cover, WhatsApp groups have been set up to provide information and intelligence that they can use. That assistance from the community is quite important.

This has been a wide-ranging debate, and I want to deal with a few issues. First, it is clear that the offending we have been discussing affects the lives and livelihoods of decent, law-abiding people. Those who have been victims of crime in rural communities often indicate that they have been left feeling isolated and undervalued, and we need to change that. No victim of crime and antisocial behaviour should feel unsafe. Their concerns should be taken seriously, and if they report, action should be taken.

In the National Rural Crime Network’s “Rural Crime” report in 2024, 49% of rural residents surveyed said they did not feel that the police take rural crime seriously, and they reported a sense of dissatisfaction with and lack of faith in rural policing. That may be because of the lack of visibility of policing in rural areas or negative experiences when a crime is reported. We will not stand for that any more, which is why we have made safer streets one of the core missions of our plan for change. It is why we are committed to restoring neighbourhood policing to communities across the country, including in rural areas. It is why we are taking action to crack down on criminals and protect the public. We will be implementing the new neighbourhood policing guarantee to deliver an additional 13,000 police officers, police community support officers and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles, ensuring that every community has a named officer to turn to. Those policing commitments will not just be about towns and cities; they will also be for rural communities, speeding up response times and building public confidence in all those areas.

As we all know, neighbourhood policing sits at the heart of the British policing model. It is a critical building block in helping communities to feel safe, and the public rightly expect their neighbourhood police to be visible, proactive and accessible to their community. The national policing guarantee will help us deliver our commitment to ensuring that greater visibility and presence in all of our communities and restoring confidence in policing.

Beyond that commitment, in the 2025-26 police settlement we have committed to provide funding of up to £19.5 billion for the policing system in England and Wales, which is an overall increase of up to £1 billion compared to this financial year. In January 2025, the Government announced in the final police funding settlement that they would double the funding available to a total of £200 million in 2025-26 to support the first steps of delivering on the 13,000 more neighbourhood personnel.

I take the point about the funding formula. I said in the main Chamber that the previous Government made two—but I now understand it is three—attempts at changing the formula. We have been in government for seven months, and we have made it very clear that we have an agenda around reforming policing to make it fit for the future and to give it the structures and capabilities it needs. That will, of course, involve a conversation about funding, and that will happen as part of our reform agenda.

The major investment that I have just talked about supports the commitment to making our country’s streets, and our village streets, safer. It also reflects the scale of the challenges, which I fully accept that forces are facing and which this Government are determined to address.

I acknowledge the vital role of the national rural crime unit and the national wildlife crime unit. Those specialist policing units play a really important part in tackling crime, as well as in helping police across the UK to tackle organised theft and disrupt serious and organised crime groups. Both units have delivered a range of incredible successes. The national rural crime unit co-ordinated the operational response by several forces to the theft of GPS units across the UK, which resulted in multiple arrests and the disruption of two organised crime groups, as well as recovering over £10 million in stolen property, including agricultural machinery and vehicles, in the last 18 months alone. The national wildlife crime unit helped to disrupt nine organised crime groups, with a further nine archived as no longer active, as well as assisting in the recovery of £4.2 million in financial penalties. It also oversees the police national response to hare coursing, which has resulted, as we heard, in a 40% reduction in offending.

I am very clear about the excellent work of both units, and although we obviously have to wait for the outcome of the spending review, the Government are committed to supporting their ongoing specialist policing activities. I understand the urgency to confirm funding, but I hope we will not have to wait too much longer before we are able to update the House on this issue.

On the issue of taking a national focus on rural crime, we will continue to support the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the next iteration of its rural and wildlife strategy for 2025 and beyond. I recently met Deputy Chief Constable Nigel Harrison and Superintendent Andrew Huddleston, who the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire praised in his speech, to ensure that the commitments made under our safer streets mission, such as the neighbourhood policing guarantee, will apply in rural areas.

I want to address a few issues on rural crime more specifically. The Government are committed to ensuring that countryside communities that are blighted by organised crime, rural theft and antisocial behaviour are protected. We understand the devastating consequences of these crimes and the fundamental impact they can have on perceptions of safety. Rural crime and the associated costs have a considerable impact on rural residents and business owners.

Significantly, the threat appears to be increasing. For example, we know the significant impact that thefts of agricultural machinery—in particular, all-terrain vehicles—have on individuals and businesses in rural areas, and the disruption that such thefts cause to essential farming work. That is why we are committed to implementing the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 to fend off these thefts and the resale of high-value equipment, and we intend to introduce the necessary secondary legislation later this year. We will shortly publish the Government’s response to the call for evidence, which will determine the scope of that secondary legislation.

We understand the impact of cruel hare coursing, which many hon. Members mentioned; livestock worrying, which was also mentioned; and the serious issue of fly-tipping, all of which blight communities. In 2022-23, local authorities reported 1.08 million fly-tipping incidents. That figure, of course, excludes the majority of private land incidents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch noted.

The same crimes that affect urban communities can also, of course, affect rural communities. I talked earlier about domestic abuse and exploitation, and the hon. Member for North Cornwall raised another issue we need to talk about: drugs, drug dealing and drug supply. We know that county lines is the most violent model of drug supply and a harmful form of child criminal exploitation. Gangs exploit children and vulnerable adults to move and store drugs and money, often using coercion, intimidation, violence and weapons. I reassure hon. Members that, through the Home Office county lines programme, we are targeting, and will continue to target, the exploitative gangs working in both rural and urban areas. It is absolutely the case that when someone reports a crime, no matter where they live, it should be properly investigated, with victims having faith that justice will be delivered and criminals will be punished.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall again for securing the debate, and I thank all those who have spoken. Rural crime is, without doubt, a serious threat and must be dealt with as such. That is why we are taking the actions I have talked about and why we have the wide-ranging safer streets mission. There is clearly much more to do, but we are determined to deliver the safety and security of all our communities, rural and urban.