Police Reform

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Let me welcome the Policing Minister to her role; she is succeeding me in the job that I did in the last Government. I genuinely wish her well in the job, and I hope that she succeeds in it, because it is important for the whole country. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in thanking the police up and down the country for the work that they do to keep us safe. When they put on their uniform to go to work each morning, they take risks that are required of those in few other professions.

In March this year, the police headcount hit 149,769—a record number of police, and 3,000 higher than the previous record. My first question is: will the Policing Minister commit to at least maintaining, if not growing, that record number of police officers? Secondly, will the Minister join me in welcoming the fact that in the past seven years, overall crime, as measured by the crime survey for England and Wales—the Office for National Statistics says that is the best measure of crime trends—has come down by 17%? The written statement yesterday, and the Home Secretary’s speech to the National Police Chiefs’ Council yesterday, mentioned the importance of technology, which I feel very strongly about, as the Minister knows. In the March Budget, the previous Chancellor committed to £230 million of spending on police technology over four years, of which this year is the first. About £80 million was due to be spent this year. Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the £80 million for this year is secure, and that she and her colleagues will honour the £230 million commitment over the coming four years?

Does the Minister agree that it is important that police spend their time actually investigating crime, not policing thought? Does she agree that the guidelines need to be changed, so that police spend time investigating only real crimes, and investigate non-crimes only when there is a real and imminent risk of criminality? That would mean a change to the guidelines. Will she make that change?

On the reform programme, we need to see the details of course, but will the Minister confirm that no money will be taken away from local police forces? Will she confirm that police and crime commissioners and chief constables will continue to be fully empowered? Finally, on police funding, she mentioned some numbers for next year’s funding settlement. She will be aware that when I was Policing Minister, we arranged a £922 million increase in funding for frontline policing for this financial year, compared with last year. The numbers she talked about in her statement are much lower than that, so will she give a commitment that any funding increase for frontline policing that she brings forward in the police funding settlement will be at least as big as the one that I announced last year?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

This is the first opportunity I have had to welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role as shadow Home Secretary, but I think he might be forgetting a few facts. As I recall, over the previous 14 years, the Conservative Government slashed policing by over 20,000 police officers, and many support staff as well. I acknowledge that the uplift programme was brought in at the end of their period in government, but they got rid of a lot of very experienced, good police officers. Also, just to remind him, we stood for election on a manifesto commitment to providing 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and specials as part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is very keen on technology. That was absolutely one of the things that he focused on. I have certainly taken up some of the issues that he was concerned about to do with live facial recognition, and I want that investment to continue. I think he is again forgetting a few things when he refers to the guidelines for non-crime hate incidents. As I recall, he was the Policing Minister who introduced those guidelines. I have listened to what he said, but I think he needs to remember what he actually did when he was the Policing Minister. I take the approach that this should be about common sense and consistency. His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services talked about the need for consistency and training; I will listen to what it has to say, rather than to the right hon. Gentleman’s view on guidelines that he introduced. Many of the questions that he asks will form part of the consultative approach that we will adopt when our White Paper is laid before Parliament.

Arrests and Prison Capacity

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Obviously, public safety is paramount in all of this, and I do want to say to the Minister that the fact that contingency plans were being drawn up is itself worrying. I accept what the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), says about this being a sensible step to take, but it is indeed very worrying that we have to have contingencies in place. If in the future these contingency plans are activated, what happens if the police decide not to prioritise an arrest and in the meantime that person goes on to harm someone? I am thinking of non-contact sexual offences and, in particular, retail crime, which the Home Affairs Committee has been looking at recently.

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Lady is right to say that arrests of offenders of the kinds she describes are extremely important, and at no point would I ever expect, even in the contingency outlined—in fact, it never came to pass, as I have set out—that offenders of the kinds she references would not continue to be arrested. That is critically important. The ECSL 70 measure—end of custody supervised licence for up to 70 days—which comes into effect tomorrow, is designed to ensure that such scenarios never come about, because as Policing Minister I want to make sure that we never see the situation she describes.

Antisemitism in the UK

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has been carrying out an inquiry into the policing of protests. We have been particularly appalled to hear evidence of the huge increase in incidents of antisemitism perpetrated in the wake of the 7 October terrorist attacks. The CST has recorded that 43% of antisemitism incidents last year explicitly referenced the Israel-Palestine 7 October attacks and the conflict in Gaza. Attacks on Jewish and Muslim communities here in Britain in response to overseas conflicts are never acceptable. What more can be done to stop the exploitation of such overseas conflicts and the effect that it has on community cohesion in this country?

[Chris Philp]

The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee asks a very good question. It disturbs me deeply, as I am sure it does many Members, to see conflict occurring elsewhere in the world playing out on our own streets and leading to tension, to put it politely, and to a lot more—often hatred—being incited domestically. As I said, there is no excuse whatsoever for the events in the middle east, in Gaza, to lead to antisemitic hatred on the streets of the United Kingdom. That is completely unacceptable, and I am disturbed to see people engaging in that kind of behaviour.

Across the House, we as political leaders need to make it clear to our communities that that behaviour is not acceptable and not consistent with British values, and that our laws will be rigorously and robustly enforced. We have values here of tolerance and mutual respect; we abhor terrorism, violence and intimidation. I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I say that we do not want to see that anywhere on our streets, and no one—no matter how strongly they feel about what is happening in Gaza—should behave in a way that is intimidating or incites racial hatred. If we all, across this House, speak unanimously with one voice on that topic, it will be heard by all communities in this country.

Coronation: Policing of Protests

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I add my thanks to those involved in the arrangements for the coronation and keeping the public safe. However, the Home Affairs Committee will no doubt want to look at the policing of protests at the coronation and, in particular, the specific provisions in the Public Order Act 2023, brought in just last week and used to arrest members of Republic.

We have heard a lot about the operational independence of the police this afternoon. Will the Minister explain why on 27 April the Home Office’s police powers unit sent an official letter to Republic, ahead of the coronation? Republic has no history of its members locking on. How many other organisations and groups received such letters? On what basis were they sent those letters? Will that practice now be the norm for the Home Office?

[Chris Philp]

I do not believe that any such letters were sent in my name, so I cannot comment on who may have received them. I suspect, although I am not certain, that those letters related to clarifying the new statutory provisions that were recently brought into effect through the Public Order Act 2023. The operational independence of the police is important, because Parliament legislates and it is then for the police to apply those laws without fear or favour, and they did so on this occasion.

Police Uplift Programme

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Sir Mark Rowley gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee this morning. According to the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police Service missed its uplift allocation of 4,557 additional officers by 1,089, missing the target by 23.9%. When I questioned Sir Mark about why that had happened, he pointed to a range of reasons, including the erosion in the starting pay of a police constable and the hot employment market in London. Can the Minister say what the implications are for the ability of the Metropolitan Police Service to perform its UK-wide responsibilities, as well as to keep Londoners safe, particularly at this point when we have had the Casey review and we know that the Metropolitan police are in the engage phase with the inspectorate? What is the Policing Minister going to do to address those concerns?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for her question. It is first worth observing that the Metropolitan police have by far the highest per capita funding of any police force in the country. I think the average for forces outside London is about £200 per capita and in London it is about £300 per capita, so the funding is very much higher. On the issues identified by the Casey report, there are a series of recommendations, most of which are for the Met and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. I expect them to implement those recommendations. On numbers, every single police force met its uplift target, with just one exception: the Metropolitan police. It is certainly a question I will be asking Sadiq Khan as the politician responsible. It was the only force not to meet the target. As the right hon. Lady said, it recruited an extra 3,468 officers and it should have recruited an extra 4,557. The funding was there to do that and I will certainly be asking Sadiq Khan why he failed. But I am pleased to be able to reassure the House that, despite that shortfall, the Metropolitan police still have a record number: 35,411 officers.

Machetes: Consultation

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I know that there is widespread concern about this issue on both sides of the House. In 2019, the Home Affairs Committee published a report on serious youth violence, following a 70% rise in knife crime over five years. The Home Office had failed to give the Committee at that time any assessment of how many young people were at risk of being involved in knife crime. The Committee called on the Government to treat this as a social emergency and warned them that the serious violence strategy was inadequate. Four previous Home Secretaries have made announcements in response to knife crime. I wonder if the Minister could set out why he thinks those approaches have not been effective. What is different about the approach that he has announced today and will that be effective?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for her question. I do not accept that the previous initiatives have been unsuccessful. I have already pointed to the steady reduction in hospital admissions as a result of knife wounds and the steady reduction in violent offences, as measured by the crime survey for England and Wales. The Government have successively tightened the law and we are tightening it further today. We have also put more and more resources successively into tackling the social problem that the Select Committee Chair rightly highlights. For example, the violence reduction units are now putting a great deal of money into the 20 police force areas where violent crime is most serious. The Youth Endowment Fund has £200 million to spend on targeted, evidence-based interventions to help young people into a better future. I have visited some of the programmes that have been run—by Everton football club in Merseyside, to give one example. I was in Brixton in south London earlier today, hearing about the community work that happens there. I think the process we are following is successively increasing resources, investing in diversionary activities for young people and successively strengthening the law where evidence emerges that that is necessary. It is over time yielding results; I set out the data at the beginning of my answer.

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It was a great pleasure to meet Bishop James Jones recently. As an aside, I pay tribute to his work in securing the infected blood inquiry, which is another example of the patronising disposition of unaccountable power, where cover-ups and secrecy become a further scandal on top of the original events. Given that the Home Secretary is not here, may I ask the Minister whether she has met Bishop James Jones to discuss his report on Hillsborough and the Government response?

[Chris Philp]

I am afraid that I do not have visibility of the Home Secretary’s diary, so I cannot give a direct answer, but I can certainly ask the Home Secretary to write to the Chair of the Select Committee in response to that question. I add my thanks to hers to the bishop for the work he has done in both of the areas to which she referred. In the coming months, there will be very full engagement with all the interested parties, including Members of Parliament who represent the relevant communities, for the reasons that she mentioned.

Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I agree with the Select Committee Chair that this is a vitally important issue. We expect leadership from the entire fire system, including the chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council. She mentioned the question of report publication, and I think she said it intended to publish in April 2023. I am happy to take that away and raise it with the NFCC. I am sure she probably expressed a view in the Committee that it should be published sooner.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

indicated assent.

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Lady is nodding, so I am happy to raise that point again and see whether publication can be expedited.

Police Service: HMI Report

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Thursday 3rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his place. The report contains very disturbing instances of sexism and harassment perpetrated against women within the police and among the general public, and the systematic failures that contributed to that. The Select Committee has just started an inquiry into police priorities. I want to invite individuals with experience of sexism and abuse within the police and of the systems that failed them to come forward and share those experiences with the Committee. On the specific issues in this report, can the Minister just say whether it is acceptable that police forces are not required to hold face-to-face interviews with candidates or to obtain their employment and character references? How can that be correct and right when the police service has such a pivotal role to play in law and order in this country?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. I strongly welcome the work that her Committee is doing in this area; it is very good that she is doing that. The issue that she raises around misogyny is a serious one. The report finds that progress has been made, but that there is a great deal more to do. I look forward to listening carefully to the recommendations that her Committee makes after it has conducted its own investigation. I think that 35% of officers are now female, which is a record figure—it has never been higher than that—and that an even higher proportion of recent recruits are female, which will hopefully add to the need to improve the culture. The training standards in the Policing Education Qualifications Framework do now include training around bias, tackling prejudice and discrimination, protecting people and looking after people with protected characteristics, but, clearly, there is a lot more to be done.

In relation to the vetting process and some of the issues that the right hon. Lady touched on at the end of her question, there are specific recommendations about them among those 43 items in yesterday’s report, and we expect police forces to adopt all of them.

Economic Situation

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

That is why we have offered the energy price guarantee to businesses as well as to consumers, and why we are keeping corporation tax low at 19% rather than putting it up. Of course, that helps businesses of all sizes: any business making £50,000 a year or more in profit will benefit from the freeze in corporation tax. We do not yet know, as far as I am aware, whether the Labour party supports that position. The shadow Chancellor is sitting impassively, not giving any indication whether she supports lower taxes; I think the House would love to hear at some point what her views are.

Those are the things that we are doing to help businesses. Last night, we voted—the Labour party voted for it as well—to reduce the national insurance burden on businesses. That is the plan that we have to help businesses, and I am very proud to stand behind it.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to hear that the Chief Secretary has confidence in the Bank of England. The media are now reporting, for the seventh time, that the Bank of England has clearly linked the mini-Budget or UK-specific factors to the turmoil in the bond market. That includes, in the past hour, the Governor speaking to camera and to a room full of the world’s top banking chief executive officers in the US. Can the Chief Secretary explain to me why the Governor of the Bank of England is wrong and why he himself is right?

[Chris Philp]

Obviously I am not in Washington and have not heard those comments. I am not going to speculate about what the Bank of England Governor may have said. We are working closely with the Bank of England Governor and other regulatory authorities to make sure that we navigate these globally volatile markets successfully, but in the long term what matters is continuing to grow our economy. That is what the Government’s plan will do.

Covid-19: Support and Accommodation for Asylum Seekers

Debate between Diana Johnson and Chris Philp

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I know that my hon. Friend has done a great deal of work in this area. The best way to make sure that people are safe and secure is to ensure that the situation in their home countries is stable and safe—that there are democratic Governments and the economies prosper. That is ultimately the way to make sure that people are safe and secure, and this Government are committed to doing that.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

Hull is a city of sanctuary. For a number of years, I have convened a roundtable of voluntary and statutory agencies to look at issues around asylum and refugees in the city, including, before covid-19, the use of hotels. One of the issues raised about housing asylum seekers in hotels with no financial support is that if they need an aspirin or a plaster, they end up going to A&E at the local hospital because they do not have the money to buy these everyday essentials. Surely that cannot be right and it is not in the interests of anybody to have those asylum seekers in our A&Es. Will the Minister look into this?

[Chris Philp]

Hotel accommodation is obviously not the preferred way to accommodate asylum seekers. I am speaking from memory, but I think that, prior to coronavirus, fewer than 1,000 people were accommodated in hotels, so less than 2% of the total. As I said, we are looking to unwind the hotel accommodation as quickly as logistics allow. In relation to the provision of basic things like plasters, there are typically welfare officers on hand in these hotels. I will investigate whether they have those sort of supplies available, because the hon. Lady is certainly right that those things should be available in the hotels.