Antisocial Behaviour in Town Centres

Esther McVey Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

Our police station was not closed. The Labour PCC decided to move it out of the town centre to an industrial estate outside Keighley, making it less accessible to many of my constituents.

In addition, in the run-up to the 2019 general election, the then Labour PCC, the then Labour MP for Keighley and the Labour leader of Bradford Council gave false hope and false promise that the police station would be moved back to the centre of town. That false hope just happened to be announced in the run-up to the general election, but what happened? All those plans are now off the table as a result of our new West Yorkshire Mayor deciding that we cannot facilitate that move. I hope we will get an instruction, or as much help from the Government as possible, to move the police station back into the centre of Keighley, from which it should have never been moved in the first place.

On the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made, police hubs are an excellent idea. In many rural parts of my constituency, facilities such as village halls have been used for community-wide engagement. A police officer, a sergeant or the neighbourhood policing team can go along and have dialogue with residents, and communicate and provide reassurance at a micro-local level. We can use such facilities across our constituencies to enable dialogue and better reporting of issues and concerns.

On drug taking, I am very pleased that the Government have taken a stance on nitrous oxide—laughing gas—cannisters, which I have been campaigning to ban since being elected. In the summer months, and particularly on bank holiday weekends, a lot of people get the train from Bradford and Leeds to Ilkley to sit at the riverside and enjoy the sunshine, but sometimes the area is used for antisocial behaviour, and that is not fair for Ilkley residents.

We all face many, many issues with antisocial behaviour. I will quickly touch on fly-tipping. I represent an urban fringe-type constituency, and we have a lot of fly-tipping, particularly in the Worth Valley ward, where Councillor Rebecca Poulsen has been fighting incredibly hard, working with the police, to deal with fly-tipping-related incidents. We must not forget that dumping used construction material, or whatever else it might be, in our beautiful environment is a form of antisocial behaviour in its own right. It was horrifying that, at the back end of last year, our Labour-run Bradford Council decided to close the Keighley tip—a ridiculous decision that would have resulted in more fly-tipping across the constituency. I am pleased to say that after I brought a petition to this House, signed by more than 7,000 people, which Laura Kelly and Martin Crangle heavily campaigned for, Labour-run Bradford Council finally listened and overturned that ridiculous decision. It has now decided to keep the Keighley tip open.

I very much welcome the Government’s plan to put more police officers on our streets. As a Conservative MP, at the last election I campaigned to get 20,000 police officers back on to our streets, and West Yorkshire police has recruited more than 1,000 since I was elected. I want to ensure that they are prioritised in dealing with the many concerns that my constituents across Keighley raise. I urge the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, to ensure that as many as possible of those police officers are on the streets of Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and Worth Valley to tackle antisocial behaviour and give our neighbourhood policing teams the means that they need.

It is a complete myth that Labour is the party of law and order, and that it actually cares about clamping down and being tough on those who commit offences that cause harm to others and try to rule the streets through fear. I can categorically say that that is not the case at all. Labour will not pull the wool over the eyes of residents across Keighley and Ilkley. It was so determined to secure power in Keighley a couple of years ago that it actively selected as a candidate for Labour-run Bradford council Mohsin Hussain, who only seven years earlier had been given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years with 250 hours of unpaid community work, after being convicted of an armed street assault in Keighley with a pickaxe handle, causing bodily harm. Another of his gang used a baseball bat. When that individual was released on bail, he was caught accelerating to 77 mph in a 30 mph zone in Keighley, driving through a series of traffic lights at speed and going around the wrong side of a roundabout. Those are the types of antisocial behaviour issues that I get contacted about time and time again. These are unfortunately the very issues that are still happening in Keighley today—physical assaults and extreme speeding. Yet Labour’s answer to all of that is to select and actively campaign for a candidate who a few years previously had been handed a two-year suspended sentence. What is worse is that our West Yorkshire Mayor, Tracy Brabin, who is in charge of implementing our local police and crime strategy, John Grogan, who wants to be the next MP for Keighley, and the current Labour leader of Bradford Council all came to Keighley to campaign, knock on doors and deliver leaflets to get that individual into power. And now, unfortunately, he is a district councillor on the Labour-controlled authority.

What does that say to the victims of antisocial behaviour, the victims of street crime, those who have to put up with physical abuse and those who live near the streets where extreme speeding regularly takes place? My view is that Labour does not care about implementing a strong and robust police and crime strategy. Labour will use any means possible to secure the votes to secure power, taking the votes of people in Keighley and Ilkley for granted.

I say to the Minister that I appreciate the work of the Home Secretary and her predecessors in taking a robust approach to antisocial behaviour. It is an issue that impacts all our constituencies time and again. It is probably one of the biggest issues to fill my inbox. We cannot sing from the rooftops about the good things in our constituencies and promote our businesses without tackling the plague that continues to haunt our town centres. On that, I will hand over to other speakers, as I know that many want to take part in this debate.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they need to bob if they wish to be called in this debate. I will not put a time limit on speeches, but be mindful that we will go to Front Benchers at 10.28 am, and that Robbie Moore will have a couple of minutes at the end to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. It is difficult for me to answer that, because I cannot speak for other areas. I can speak only for mine, and I must say that in my constituency, the police are never too far away. The issue for street pastors is that they are not police. That is probably why they are approachable, which is one of their advantages. I know from my constituents that they have probably saved people from abuse and physical and other harm, and that they have got people home safely. Street pastors have a working relationship with the police, but they are not the police. They are there to help, and I think people recognise that; the street pastors’ years of involvement in this work on the streets of Newtownards, Bangor, the Ards peninsula, Comber and elsewhere in my constituency have shown that to be the case. The hon. Lady is right; street pastors need to be safe, but in my area, I think they are.

I conclude with this: these issues are prevalent in all constituencies across the United Kingdom. An antisocial behaviour plan has recently been introduced in England, which it seems will tackle the worst of antisocial behaviour in England. I am grateful to the Minister, for whom I have the utmost respect. What discussions could she have with our Department of Justice back home? I believe wholeheartedly that we can do things much better together, because this is a national issue. That is why the debate is important, and that is why I am speaking in it—not that I can necessarily add anything more for the Minister to reply to. I just wanted to let her know that we have some ideas in Northern Ireland. It is good to exchange those ideas, and thereby do better for everyone.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

We move now to the Front-Bench spokespeople.