Immigration and Home Affairs

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cleverly]

The figures speak for themselves. People will be able to see the levels of crime, including violent crime, in Conservative-run parts of the country, and compare them with those in Labour-run parts of the country. The figures are in the public domain. Anyone can check them.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Government have not seen fit to lay out their plans to address the issue of violent, aggressive, intimidatory or disruptive protest. For the safety of our streets, and for the confidence of the officers who need to police protests, I hope that the Government do the right thing and change that vacuum where policy should be.

Under Conservative leadership, we announced a raft of changes to support victims of domestic abuse, putting more abusers under management of the police and under increasingly strict arrangements by designating violence against women and girls as a national policing priority—a national threat on a par with the threat of terrorism. As I have said, the Home Secretary and her Front-Bench colleagues should know that I will always give my wholehearted support to actions they take to protect women and girls. We have made improvements through Operation Soteria, changing the way the investigatory system operates to ensure that victims of rape and serious sexual assaults can get justice and providing specialist training for officers.

We were committed to ensuring that rape victims felt confident to come forward to report, because we know the sad truth that, even with the good work of Operation Soteria, far too few people come forward. We want to encourage them to do so, and we will support the Government in any action they take in this area.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the shadow Home Secretary for giving way on that important point. He will recognise that one issue we have all campaigned on is the fact that many of those women do not come forward because they have no trust in the police. A key issue we have been working on is getting senior officers to suspend those police officers who are found guilty of wrongdoing. Does he agree that we need to make sure that that works now, so that those women can have the confidence to come forward, including where those allegations are against other police officers?

[Mr Cleverly]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; although it did not make its way through all its parliamentary stages, the proposals that we put in the Criminal Justice Bill strengthened the accountability framework for officers and strengthened police leadership to take action. Again, I hope that the Government will continue that incredibly important work, and once again I put on record my willingness to support them in ensuring that the disciplinary practices within policing give women the confidence to come forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important point—there was a lot of cross-party agreement. There were also areas where the last Government’s attempt to respond ended up provoking a lot of disagreement and where we had different views. I suggest that he discusses the detail further with the new Home Office Ministers, because we take the matter seriously but want to ensure that we get it right and do not make the errors that the previous Government made in the detail of their response.

As well as the issues around community and town centre crime, we have had an important report from the police today warning that violence against women and girls is “a national emergency” that has not been taken seriously for far too long. We have record levels—90%—of crime going unsolved. The criminal justice system and prisons are being pushed into crisis. Too many people have the feeling that nothing is done and no one will come. We cannot go on like that.

For us in the Labour party, this is rooted in our values. Security is the bedrock of opportunity. Families cannot prosper and get on in life if they do not feel safe. Communities cannot be strong if they do not feel secure. A nation cannot thrive if it is under threat. Respect for each other and the rule of law underpin who we are as a country; they are how we sustain our democracy and our sense of justice and fairness. Too often, those things have felt undermined.

That is why we have made safer streets one of the five central missions of this Labour Government—a mission to restore and rebuild neighbourhood policing, to restore trust and confidence in policing and the criminal justice system, and to deliver our unprecedented ambition of halving serious violence within a decade. That is a hugely ambitious mission: halving serious violence means halving knife crime and violence against women and girls over the next 10 years. I know that will be extremely difficult, but I ask everyone to be part of it, because it is so important and we should all be trying to keep people safe.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I welcome the Home Secretary to her place, and I know that she has campaigned on this really important area for many years. She talked about all of us being involved in this mission. Does she agree that the people who are working with these communities on the ground—youth workers, independent domestic violence advocates, doctors in A&E units, school employees and teachers—all need to be involved in this conversation? Many of those people see what is happening before the authorities do, and it is vital that they are part of this national conversation.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. This has to be a mission for all of us—it is not just about what the Home Office does, although we want the Home Office to do so much more in this area. It is not just about what the Government do; it has to be about all of us. It has to be about recognising that for generation after generation, people have just shrugged their shoulders about unacceptable violence against women and girls. It has just been seen as normal—just one of those things that happens—when actually, we should not stand for it. This is an opportunity for change, and to bring everyone together to make that change. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that those who are on the frontline, seeing that violence in practice, are often also those who know what needs to be done.

As part of the new crime and policing Bill, we will bring forward measures to tackle violence against women and girls. That includes making sure that we have specialist rape and sexual assault units in every police force and specialist domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms, recognising the terrible tragedy of what happened to Raneem Oudeh and how devastating it was: she called 999 four times on the night she was killed, and no one came. For her and her family, we have to make sure that we make changes. We have to get neighbourhood police back on the beat, so we will introduce a new neighbourhood policing guarantee and new arrangements to cut waste, compelling forces to change the way they procure, in order to make the savings we need—savings that we will put back on the frontline.