Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House
Thursday 23rd September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The punishment must fit the crime, and the Government are taking urgent action to tackle knife crime and keep people safe, in addition to hiring 20,000 additional police officers. We are spending £40 million this financial year to tackle drugs supply and county lines, building on the successful results of our £25 million county lines programme, and £130.5 million to tackle serious violence and homicide this financial year, including funding for targeted police interventions and the introduction of serious violence reduction orders, which will make it easier for officers to stop and search those convicted of a knife crime. In addition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General can apply for unduly lenient sentences to be increased. So there are things in place, but it is fundamental to our constitution that Parliament passes the law, which the judges must then implement as we have passed it.

Diana Johnson Portrait Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
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I was really pleased that in the Queen’s Speech the Government announced that they were going to make the armed forces covenant statutory and that they were going to introduce a covenant for the police as well. Between 9 March 2020 and 7 May 2021, 1,561 NHS and social care workers died from covid-19, on the frontline of the pandemic. May we have a debate, in Government time, about why we need to have a covenant for the NHS and social care workers, to ensure that they are protected just as we want to make sure that the armed forces and the police are protected?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The right hon. Lady always raises points of great importance in this House, and the work done by people on the frontline during covid was of fundamental importance. I think that this is initially a subject for a Backbench Business debate to raise this issue and whether covenants may be appropriate in other areas beyond the armed forces and the police, but I will certainly take it up with the Department concerned.