Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on bringing forward this important debate and speaking so powerfully. Since Kindertransport and before, right through to those coming from Afghanistan and Ukraine today, we are proud in this country to give people safe haven, and we must continue to do so.

I will focus on the boats. As a yachtsman, I am well aware of the dangers of crossing open waters. On 23 September last year, I was crossing the channel—quite legally—and I saw the French warship Athos behaving in the most extraordinary fashion. I looked on the navigation device and saw that it was circling, and it kept circling as it left the French coast towards the UK coast. It was circling around a very small boat crowded with people. When we got closer, we could see those people; they were in a desperate condition. What horrified me about that particular incident was that the French warship was just circling them. I am a yachtsman; I am a seaman. That is what I do. What we do is take desperate people off those boats and make sure they are safe. I have the evidence on my phone right here.

We must stop that sort of thing happening. Stopping illegal boats is a matter of common humanity. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said, 39 people lost their lives in the back of a trailer, so it is not just the boats in south Essex. That is because of our weak borders. The cost to the taxpayer is enormous because of this Home Office malfunction, as I see it. It is not acceptable. I believe something like £7 million per day is spent on hotel fees, which is outrageous, but we are looking to address this. We have to show humanity about it.

Locally, at a party conference last year I was contacted by the chief executive of my local council. He told me that he had been given 24 hours’ notice, at a weekend, that we were going to have a migrant hotel suddenly opened upon us. The council did not have time to get services in line. Those people would need help. It was a question of putting desperate people in a deprived place. This was not nimbyism; the local council had identified other, more suitable sites, but the company that the Home Office had employed had decided to open that site within 24 hours.

Fortunately, by working with officials and asking an urgent question in the Chamber, I was able to get that particular incident stopped. We are dealing with this with a scattergun approach. We are being reactive as the incidents happen. We cannot go on like this. We cannot keep fighting a rearguard action. For the sake of humanity, and for the sake of the taxpayers of Clacton and elsewhere, we must stop the boats. That means backing the new Government measures, which have been laid out here today, and making the Home Office more logistically competent. In my view, and I have said this several times before, that means liaising with our French counterparts and getting British boots on the ground in France. We can do this. I am sure our French counterparts would like to see it. That would stop the boats leaving those beaches, and prevent the horror that so many people go through. We saw a child on a beach in Kent, and we never want to see that again.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all hon. Members for keeping to time. We will move on to the wind-ups now. Each Front-Bench speaker has 10 minutes, or effectively 11, given that we have a bit of extra time.

Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley]

I absolutely agree. I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, as always. He is correct. We have a duty not only as a country and a nation, but as humans, to acknowledge that these children are not the criminal gangs or the ones facilitating the process of getting to the UK. They are simply the innocent bystanders of a process that they themselves may not have chosen.

Far too often, children have been incorrectly declared as adults. An immigration officer will make an age judgment based on demeanour or appearance. If they are judged to be an adult, they are not sent for an age assessment. Rather, they are given a date of birth and sent to live in shared rooms with adults. In 2021, a specialist programme run by the Refugee Council worked with 233 young people over 12 months. The Home Office had initially determined them to be “certainly” adults, when in fact, only 14 of them were adults. That means that 219 of those children were denied the rights and protections of a child, and were exposed to further exploitation, trafficking and violence as a result of that determination. Those 219 children were counting on us to take care of them.

The Home Office refuses to document how often that happens, how many children are judged incorrectly to be adults or what happens to them. There is no process to track such a decision. If there is any dubiety in that decision, there is no pathway to ensure that those individuals are protected and safeguarded until a definitive determination can be made. It is fair to say that even the determinations that are made are questionable at times. I therefore ask the Minister to be more transparent about frontline decision making. Will he commit to publishing statistics on age-disputed children who are initially treated as adults? Will he outline a pathway for those individuals to ensure that they are protected and safeguarded within the system, as they should be?

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 gives the Home Office powers to conduct medical age assessments. However, the British Association of Social Workers has stated that there is no known scientific method that can precisely determine age. Pushing scientific methods upon age-disputed young people is incredibly insensitive. It ignores the trauma they have been through and the atrocities they have seen.

Those who are wrongly declared as adults will not be able to avoid deportation to Rwanda under this Government’s cruel plans. That is a terrifying prospect for children and young people. I am disappointed in the UK Government. A place that was supposed to be their second chance and a place of safety is only adding to their stress and anxiety. I therefore ask the Minister: when will the report from the Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee on specific scientific methods for age assessment be made available? Will learning from the national age assessment board pilots be shared, given their frontline role in rectifying the Home Office’s mistakes? We need to ensure that these processes are transparent and that we can scrutinise them appropriately.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are being abandoned by the Home Office and placed in hotels that are desperately unfit for anyone to live in, but particularly children, who are forced to live alongside adults, further exposing them to potential harms. The Home Office has set out its intentions to speed up the process by which unaccompanied children are transferred from temporary hotels to long-term care, but it is simply not enough. Again, that process is not transparent. It only normalises the use of hotels that are unfit accommodation for anyone, but particularly for children who should be nowhere near them.

Every Child Protected Against Trafficking says that housing children in hotels is unlawful, dangerous and contrary to the UK’s child welfare legislation. In October last year, more than 220 unaccompanied children went missing from hotels. Had those children been in the care of authorities, they would have been protected. I ask the Minister again, what is the pathway and how do we ensure that no child who is placed in any form of accommodation can go missing without someone being directly accountable and responsible?

Unaccompanied children are alone, scared and vulnerable. Many have left behind their families not knowing how they are; they deserve to have their families join them in safety. The Home Office’s position on altering family reunification rights for children is nothing short of ridiculous. This Government believe that allowing children and young people to sponsor their families would incentivise parents to send their children on dangerous journeys to the UK. Whether that is the case or not, I do not believe it is a decision any parent would make outside of the most desperate of circumstances.

Turning briefly to the point on family reunification, the Home Office’s minimum income requirement means that UK citizens and settled persons currently have to earn £18,600 before they can sponsor a spouse or partner to join them—more, if children are involved. That means that a substantial percentage of the population who do not earn that sum cannot live with their family and have to leave the country. Many thousands of families have been split apart since its introduction almost a decade ago, and many more have been affected by the rules that will also apply to European economic area family members.

Rather than reduce the level of income, or abandon the policy altogether as I have argued for repeatedly, reports have emerged over Christmas that the Home Office is thinking of increasing it further, splitting more families apart. The fact is that many families in the UK right now may struggle to meet those requirements in the current circumstances. To place that requirement arbitrarily on families only serves to ensure that further families will not receive reunification. It is not a reason to keep families apart. That they make those perilous journeys only highlights the grave circumstances that children flee from.

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 brought in a ham-fisted policy with deferential treatment for refugees seeking family reunion based on the way they entered the UK. Those who arrived outside of one of the ever-dwindling safe and legal routes need to meet higher tests and additional requirements before being able to reunite with their family members. Organisations such as Families Together are calling for this discriminatory policy to be scrapped.

I close my contribution by apologising to the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who come to this country seeking safe harbour—because it is simply not the case. I apologise to the thousands of children who have come here and potentially been lost in a system with no traceability, because this Government refuse to acknowledge that they are in fact children. I am sorry that I could not cover more in this debate, but their voices and stories should not be ignored just because of where they came from. The fact is that they are children, and they should be treated as such. The harm and neglect that they are facing after seeking refuge in the UK can only be blamed on this Government, and the heartless Home Office polices that they exhibit.

I do not wish to hammer home the point any more than I already have, but it is simply unimaginable to me that we have, just recently, 219 children who we cannot account for, and many more who we have incorrectly administered as adults. What will the Minister do to correct that? It simply cannot continue.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

This is a half-hour debate; do you have the permission of the mover of the motion to speak?

--- Later in debate ---

[Giles Watling]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for securing this very important debate. I represent the coastal community of Clacton in Essex; we have the second-longest coastline in England. It is a very beautiful coastline with many sandy beaches. Essex has many points of entry. It has two freeports. It was in Essex where we had the horrific loss of life, when 39 people being trafficked were accidentally asphyxiated in the back of a container—Members might remember that horror. I am a yachtsman, and I know how treacherous our waters can be.

Children from the likes of Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan must have a quick, legal and safe route of asylum to our country. Quite frankly, some of the stories I read about children chill my blood. As we on the coast in Essex know, illegal crossings are inviting disaster, though for victims of modern-day slavery, the crossing might well be the best part of it. But we cannot be emotional here; we have to be calm, and to think this through, as the evil traffickers do. They know that if they tell people to claim to be under 18, those people will mostly be subject to our care system, as opposed to the justice system. They know that councils struggle to deal with complex cases, so people absconding from care to get to their sinister destination is certainly not unheard of.

The only solution is to negotiate with our French neighbours. We have British boots in control rooms in France, which is a welcome development, but we can negotiate further and get British boots on the ground in France. We can finance that. With every boat that lands here, we are telling those overseas that their dangerous business model can work, and telling those waiting here for their product that their evil business model is still viable. However, the point of my speech is to highlight that, for areas such as Essex, stopping small boats is not enough. Human misery can be and is traded in large vessels, heavy goods vehicles and so on, as I mentioned earlier. I urge the Minister to apply the same focus that we have on small boats to other modes of travel, which can be equally lethal, and to get boots on the ground in France for the sake of these children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come on in a moment to answer the hon. Lady’s questions about age verification, but I disagree that sending individuals to Rwanda, which has now been declared a safe country by the courts, is a policy that is uncompassionate or cruel. Quite the opposite is true.

We live in an age of mass migration. Millions of people wish to come to the United Kingdom. If we do nothing to deter people from coming to the UK, which I think is the position that the hon. Lady and her party suggest taking, we will find not 45,000 people crossing the channel, but hundreds of thousands of people doing so in the years and decades ahead. We have to respond to this issue as a country, as many other countries around the world are doing.

From the conversations that the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I have had with our European and international partners, it is clear that every developed country in the world is thinking carefully about how they can put in place procedures and policies that will prevent mass migration and deter individuals from making dangerous crossings or damaging their national sovereignty. Other European countries are looking to the work we are doing on Rwanda. We may see other European countries copy that policy and make agreements with third parties in the years ahead.

[Giles Watling]

The Minister almost answered my point in his last sentence. In 2020, I believe there were some 90 million displaced people across the globe on the move. That figure will have increased. Other countries will be facing the same problems that we face, and they will all have different models. Are we looking at different models?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are looking at all models; I hope that hon. Members can see from the plans set out by the Prime Minister that this will be a campaign on several fronts. We are looking at every viable route in order to deter people from coming to the UK, to process applications as swiftly as possible, and to find better forms of accommodation when they are here. I know that my hon. Friend’s constituency has been on the sharp end of the situation regarding accommodation. Of course, we are talking to our international partners around the world, who are all grappling with the same challenge.

We are not an international outlier. The policies that we are enacting are those that are being enacted or considered by most other developed countries. The Prime Minister, through his recent conversations with President Macron, and the Home Secretary, through the Calais Group of northern European states, are working intensively and constructively with our partners to find common ways forward. The treaties that we are bound by, such as the refugee convention, were created for a different era, in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, prior to this period in which tens if not hundreds of millions of individuals are looking to travel around the world. It is in that context that we need to sharpen the deterrent we have as a country to make sure that we are not providing an easier route than our European neighbours, and are not a more compelling destination than our nearest neighbours, for those shopping for asylum or, particularly, for economic migrants.

I will answer the questions the hon. Lady has brought to my attention. The first point is about how we house individuals. It is important to say—I mean no disrespect to the hon. Lady, but this point needs to be made—that Scotland is bearing a lighter burden than other parts of the United Kingdom when it comes to refugees generally, and to those who are crossing the channel in small boats in particular. The same appears to be true with respect to children.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on consultation with local authorities as to the selection of hotels for contingency asylum accommodation.

[The Minister for Immigration (Robert Jenrick)]

On my appointment by the Prime Minister three weeks ago, I was appraised of the critical situation at the Manston processing centre. Within days, the situation escalated further with a terrorist attack at Western Jet Foil that forced the transfer of hundreds of additional migrants to Manston. I urgently visited Western Jet Foil and Manston within days of my appointment to assess the situation for myself and to speak with frontline staff, during which time it became clear to me that very urgent action was required.

Since then, the numbers at Manston have fallen from more than 4,000 to zero today. That would not have been possible without the work of dedicated officials across the Home Office—from the officials in cutters saving lives at sea, to the medical staff at Manston—and I put on record my sincere gratitude to them for the intense effort required to achieve that result.

To bring Manston to a sustainable footing and meet our legal and statutory duties to asylum seekers who would otherwise have been left destitute, we have had to procure additional contingency accommodation at extreme pace. In some instances, however, that has led to the Home Office and our providers failing to properly engage with local authorities and Members of Parliament. I have been clear that that is completely unacceptable and that it must change.

On Monday, a “Dear colleague” letter in my name was sent to outline a new set of minimum requirements for that engagement, backed by additional resources. This includes an email notification to local authorities and Members of Parliament no less than 24 hours prior to arrivals; a fulsome briefing on the relevant cohort, required support and dedicated point of contact; and an offer of a meeting with the local authority as soon as possible prior to arrival.

I have since met chief executives and leaders of local authorities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, among many other meetings, to improve our engagement. We discussed their concerns and outlined the changes that we intend to make together. I have also met our providers to convey my concerns and those conveyed to me by hon. Members on both sides of the House in recent weeks, and to agree new standards of engagement and conduct from them.

These new standards will lead to a modest improvement, but I am clear that much more needs to be done, so this performance standard will be reviewed weekly with a view to improving service levels progressively as quickly as we can. In the medium term, we are committed to moving to a full dispersal accommodation model, which would be fairer and cheaper. We continue to pursue larger accommodation sites that are decent but not luxurious, because we want to make sure that those in our care are supported appropriately but that the UK is a less attractive destination for asylum shoppers and economic migrants. That is exactly what the Home Secretary and I intend to achieve.

[Giles Watling]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Last Sunday afternoon, the Home Office contacted my local authority by email to give it 24 hours’ notice that it had selected a hotel to act as contingency asylum accommodation. That gave the excellent people at Tendring District Council no time to respond properly to the issue of services. It is an inadequate timeframe and shows how poor the comms from the Home Office have been; I have not been contacted personally about the issue at all. I am glad that the Minister finds it unacceptable, but will he agree to meet me and the local authority to discuss the plans for Clacton?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those important issues. I will, of course, be happy to meet him, as I have met hon. Members on both sides of the House in almost every case where someone has requested to do so.

In respect of the hotel in Tendring, as I understand it, having spoken to officials this morning, a proposition was put to Tendring District Council to use a former care home in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which would have accommodated a small number of asylum seekers. Short notice was given because it was to be a backstop accommodation option in the light of the extreme situation that we were contending with at Manston. On further inquiries, and prior to his inquiry to the Department and the calling of the urgent question, the proposition was dropped by the Home Office and there is no intention of proceeding with it.

For information, had that proposition been taken forward, it would have been for a very small number of individuals. At the moment, there are 39 asylum seekers accommodated in my hon. Friend’s constituency, 14 of whom are in hotels and 25 in dispersed accommodation. That accounts for 0.02% of the population of Tendring’s local authority. I do not say that to diminish the legitimate concerns that he raises, but merely to provide context. If we are dealing with 40,000 individuals crossing the channel illegally, there will be a need for all local authorities in the country to work with the Home Office and to play their part. It is absolutely incumbent on the Home Office in return, however, to provide good standards of engagement so that we can ensure that the right accommodation is chosen in the right places. That is exactly what I intend to achieve.

Migration

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

That does sound like a very concerning incident. My hon. Friend has my assurance that I will raise it with the Home Office and, indeed, the police, and will report back to him.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

On 23 September, when I was crossing the channel—quite legally—I spotted the French warship Athos behaving very strangely. I have here a screenshot of the warship, which I took on a navigational device. It was circling a small open boat full of people.

[Craig Mackinlay]

Escorting it.

[Giles Watling]

The warship made no attempt to pick those people up, as it should have. As a yachtsman, I can tell the House that they were in danger and should have been taken off the boat, but the warship was, as my hon. Friend says, escorting that boat to our shores.

I am pleased with the deal that the Home Secretary made, and it is, as my right hon. Friend said, a good first step, but in my view it does not go far enough. Should we not push to get British boots on the ground and on the beaches alongside their French counterparts, in joint operations, to keep people on the shores of France, or on the shores of the continent?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Of course we would like to have an effective returns agreement with France, and we would like to have British officers supporting their French counterparts in northern France. Those issues remain for discussion with France, but it is an important first step that we now have our officers working with their French counterparts in the control centre so that the very sophisticated intelligence that we are now gathering is being shared in real time and acted upon by the French.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

When it comes to helping vulnerable people, it is far more effective to help those who are in dangerous locations rather than shipping people from, say, Spain to the United Kingdom, because countries like Spain are already safe countries. As I say, we do more than our fair share when it comes to protecting vulnerable people. I have already referenced the fact that we have the highest number of UASCs of any European country, and our resettlement programme, in the five years from 2015 to 2020, took in more people directly from conflict zones than any other European country. So any suggestion that this country is not doing its fair share is completely wrong and completely misguided.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

This issue just seems to be maundering on and on; we keep coming back to it again and again. On 9 June this year, I asked Ministers about this issue, as my constituents in Clacton expect this matter to be dealt with—it is what they voted for. People’s lives are at risk. Criminal gangs are getting rich and it has to stop, so what concrete progress has been made since I last asked this question? I reiterate that we need to get the French navy to step up to the plate and take those people off the boats in international waters. How are we going to ensure that that happens, and soon?

[Chris Philp]

Since we last spoke, the French officers operating on or near French beaches have stopped hundreds of crossing attempts—they have stopped about 3,000 crossing attempts so far this year. We have also established the joint intelligence cell that I mentioned earlier, and intelligence passed from the National Crime Agency here in the UK to our French counterparts contributed, I believe, to 84 crossing attempts being prevented this morning alone, so that is good progress. However, there is undoubtedly more that needs to be done, because these crossings are continuing at frankly unacceptable levels, and negotiations and discussions are continuing as we speak with our French colleagues to step up our efforts and activities even more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to stop migrants crossing the English Channel illegally.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to stop migrants crossing the English Channel illegally.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

I am very glad that this question has arisen. We should be absolutely clear that these crossings of the English channel are extremely dangerous. They are crossing the busiest shipping lines in the world. They are facilitated by criminal gangs who are ruthlessly exploiting vulnerable people. The crossings are also entirely unnecessary because France is a safe country and it has a very well-established and functioning asylum system. We are therefore working with our French counterparts around the clock, sharing intelligence between our National Crime Agency and the French authorities, to stop illegally facilitated crossings and to prevent on-the-beach embarkations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I entirely agree with the point my hon. Friend makes, and with the similar points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), on this topic. We have a points-based system coming into force shortly. We granted asylum or protection to 20,000 people last year, one of the highest figures in Europe, and we welcomed 3,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, the highest number of any country in Europe. Our legal migration methods are entirely fair. We should therefore be policing illegal migration routes with complete effectiveness, and the Home Secretary and I are determined to do that.

[Giles Watling]

I thank my hon. Friend for his earlier answer, but we know that the migrants, as they cross the channel, sometimes threaten the French navy that they will throw themselves or their children into the sea. That is an appalling act, and we need to get the French navy to step up to the plate and take those people off the boats in international waters. What are we doing now to ensure that this happens?

[Chris Philp]

Discussions are under way between the UK Government and the French Government. Indeed, I am speaking to my opposite number, the French deputy Interior Minister, Monsieur Nunez, on Thursday this week. There is more we are doing as well, including working with the French OCRIEST, the French gendarmes and the Police aux Frontières—the PAF—to ensure that as many of those embarkations are stopped before they even get on to the water. About 50% are stopped before they get on to the water, but we would like that number to be a great deal higher.

Policing (England and Wales)

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I know Belgravia police station very well indeed—[Laughter.] It was not through having spent any overnight stays there. During my time in policing in London, I visited it on a couple of occasions. The Met will be in receipt of a further 1,369 police officers, who will need to be accommodated somewhere. As I have said in the media in the past, perhaps to some hilarity, their lockers will need to go somewhere, and an expansion of the size that London will see over the next few years means that a general review of the property strategy is sensible.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

In Clacton, we led a campaign to increase the precept for policing, it spread across Essex, and I am very glad that we have more police officers in Clacton and we have town centre teams. However, like many parts of the rest of the country, we have a lot of knife crime and it needs to be dealt with. What is my hon. Friend thinking of doing to stop young people getting drawn into that sort of crime in the first place?

Oral Answers to Questions

Giles Watling Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. He will, of course, recall that elements of the compliant environment were introduced under the last Labour Government, including the controls introduced in 1999 on temporary and illegal migrant access to benefits and the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which introduced controls on local authority social care.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important question about the Windrush compensation scheme, and it is important that we have the scheme up and running and are receiving applications. We have, of course, undertaken to provide regular updates to the Home Affairs Committee, which will provide exactly the information that the hon. Gentleman seeks.

Of course, it is a requirement under legislation that the compensation scheme be for a period of two years, but we are looking closely at that. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that should there be a requirement to extend it, which would undoubtedly need primary legislation, we would be happy to consider that.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

Diverting young people away from crime is at the heart of our approach to tackling serious violence. Factors such as domestic abuse, truancy and substance abuse can make a young person more vulnerable to becoming a victim or perpetrator of serious violence. That is why, for example, we are investing £220 million in early intervention schemes—a record amount.

[Giles Watling]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. We all know that instances of violent crime in urban centres such as London get the most media attention, but sadly we are also seeing our share of violent crime in my coastal constituency. We had one robbery at knifepoint and one serious assault in the same area of the town in the past week. Following a campaign that I led in Essex, we have seen 12 more officers on the streets of Clacton. They work so hard, but what more can be done to prevent young people in areas such as my constituency from turning towards violent crime?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend has led an excellent local campaign and I commend him for it. As he will know, Essex police has received £1.7 million from the £100 million extra funding to tackle serious violence that was recently announced. In addition, his local police and crime commissioner has been provisionally allocated a further £1.16 million for a violence reduction unit. He may also welcome the £660,000 allocated to Essex from the early intervention youth fund.

Elder Abuse

Giles Watling Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for my first Adjournment debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you were for my maiden speech. Long may this tradition continue.

I want to raise the increasingly important issue of elder abuse, a terrible and perhaps poorly understood crime. At its heart is the trust that an older person may rightly expect to establish with another person for reasons of care, but sadly that trust is frequently violated, leading to physical, financial, psychological and even sexual abuse and to some deeply troubling outcomes for victims.

I want to express my disappointment that, to my mind at least, the issue is too often overlooked at national level. Here in Parliament there have been only a handful of mentions of elder abuse in recent years, even though it is a real and growing problem that can occur in an institutional care setting or a private home. Despite elder abuse being such a widespread concern, it does not dominate our discourse in the way that such a despicable act should. That is disappointing, and perhaps some newspapers are right when they accuse us here in Parliament of marginalising a forgotten generation.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I am sure he is aware as I am that families have often had to hide cameras in care homes to film the abuse going on there—we have seen documentaries about that. I agree with him that something should be done about the problem, because elderly people have made a major contribution to this country. Does he agree that there should be better training and better pay for carers, and that the law should be tightened up?

[Giles Watling]

I agree that there should be financial support, and I also agree about CCTV—I shall come on to those points a little later.

We clearly have a lot to make up for in Parliament, and I hope that today’s debate will prompt some constructive action and, at the very least, go some way towards raising awareness at national level.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need to raise the issue. I, too, have had constituents who have experienced elder abuse. As people grow older they become more isolated, so the risk of abuse increases. Does he agree that safeguarding adults boards should have a specific focus on older people, and should assess the risk to them and come up with prevention plans?

[Giles Watling]

I could not agree more. Those boards should have a key role in ensuring that our older people are safe and secure—that is what this is all about.

I am the MP for a constituency where more than 32% of residents are aged over 65—including me, incidentally. That is the highest percentage of any constituency in the country, so it is hardly surprising that I am leading this debate.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend kindly for giving way; he is being very generous. He is portraying this as a British problem, but does he agree that it is not just a British problem? The World Health Organisation has published material that shows that this is happening all around the world. It is a generational problem that we have to deal with, as he rightly points out.

[Giles Watling]

I absolutely take my hon. Friend’s point that this happens all over the world, but we must clean up our own act first and make sure that we are far ahead of the game, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Where we lead, others follow.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Each of us in the House tonight has experience of this issue from our constituencies and it is very important. We are absolutely disgusted by the abuse of elderly people in homes across the UK. Is he aware of the recent poll by the charity Action on Elder Abuse, which found that nearly one in 10 older people had experienced serious physical, mental or financial abuse in homes? That would indicate that 23,000 older people have been affected in Northern Ireland and nearly 1 million across the UK. Does he agree that one way of tackling this is to ensure that adequate safeguarding is in place, for example, in care homes, to ensure that older people do not suffer at the hands of those who are there to care for and not abuse them?

[Giles Watling]

I could not agree more, and I have seen those statistics. We have to remember that this happens not only in care homes, but in private homes where carers come to look after elderly people.

I must admit that since my election last year, elder abuse has not been as prominent in my mind as perhaps it should have been. In fact, it was a meeting with some of our local pensioners who formed the very good group TenPAG—the Tendring Pensioners’ Action Group—in August this year that made me fully appreciate the need to tackle this problem. Having gone away from that meeting and investigated the matter further, I was deeply disturbed by what I found. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the statistics are truly shocking. There are 1 million victims of elder abuse every year in the UK, but here is another statistic: only 0.3% of the reported incidents result in a successful criminal conviction. That is not good enough. Convicted abusers often escape with flimsy sentences and trivial fines.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech and being generous with his time, which I appreciate is limited. I have also had experience of constituents raising such matters, and particularly financial abuse of the elderly. To declare an interest, I also used to prosecute for Oxfordshire trading standards and came across many people who had been abused in that sense.

There is one category that my hon. Friend has not mentioned: sometimes in their own homes, people can be befriended by strangers for the precise purpose of exploiting and abusing them. Does he condemn that as much as I do—I am sure he does—and will he commend and encourage the volunteer support groups who do so much to ensure that people are not isolated and that such problems are uncovered?

--- Later in debate ---

[Giles Watling]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I could not agree more that elder abuse in people’s homes is, in some way, even more chilling, and I will come to that shortly.

This is not just an appalling failure of justice; the lax approach to punishment fails to deter would-be abusers, who see older people as a soft target, as my hon. Friend pointed out. We must do more to protect older people. We would not fail the victims of child, domestic or sexual abuse in this way, so why are we seemingly happy to fail the victims of elder abuse? Why are we happy for there to be a lower conviction rate for the abuse of older people than for racially motivated crimes, homophobic or transphobic crimes, domestic abuse and disability hate crime? It is simply unacceptable, and I propose that we put elder abuse in its own category in line with these other appalling crimes to improve the justice outcome for victims.

As we have said, elder abuse can take place in a care setting or in a private home, and chillingly the abuser is often well known to the person being abused. They may be a partner, a child or relative, a friend or neighbour, a care worker, a health or social worker or another professional. Older people may even be abused by the person who cares for them—that sounds like an oxymoron, but there it is—and this abuse is potentially very easy to carry out. I remember being put in charge of my late mother’s affairs following the death of my father. I was astonished at the sweeping powers that the enduring power of attorney gave me—powers that could so easily be abused. Fortunately, my mother had a devoted son who saw her live out her days in comfort and security, but sadly that is not always the case, and when that trust is abused the penalties should be severe.

Abuse can be perpetrated anywhere and by anyone, and that has led to some truly awful situations. In Sussex recently, £10 million was stolen from vulnerable fraud victims in just one year. Some 89% of the victims were aged over 60 and 63% were living alone. In Cheshire, as we all may recall, care home workers were filmed abusing an elderly, blind dementia victim. Those abusers were spared jail, despite the public outcry. In Cambridgeshire, a pensioner aged 105 was assaulted—the oldest known victim of elder abuse so far. These incidents, all of which have taken place within the last 18 months, should never have occurred, and I feel for those people who have had to live through these harrowing experiences in what are supposed to be the golden years of their lives. These are people who have done so much to make our country what it is today.

I wish it were not so, but in Clacton we are not immune to these crimes either. In 2016, a resident in my constituency was defrauded out of £57,000 by his carer, who was sentenced to just 15 months in prison, and in 2013, 16 people were arrested for financially abusing 39 people. All the victims were from the Clacton area and were aged between 65 and 99. I have no doubt that many colleagues will have similar stories in their own constituencies.

I also have no doubt that colleagues will have heard about abusive situations in care homes. Unfortunately, these incidents are becoming more common. In fact, researchers at University College London found that 99% of carers across 92 care homes had witnessed or taken part in troubling behaviour. That is an appalling statistic. It is absolutely shocking and a good enough reason, I think, to install CCTV cameras in communal areas. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) is pushing for that outcome, and I give him my full support.

We would be naive to think, however, that elder abuse only occurs in the care home. As we have said, it can be just as common when care is taking place in the home, where standards can slip, corners can be cut and monitoring can become a side issue, thanks to pressures that mean keeping the system going becomes more important than safeguarding. Domiciliary care, or care in the home, is our most common and important form of care, and we need urgently to address long-term social care funding issues in this sector before we see quality suffer.

One way to do that is to secure the future of the adult social care precept, which has been temporarily lifted over the past three years to allow councils to raise additional funds. In my view, that is a good thing. I hope, then, to see the adult social care precept become a permanent resource for local councils, not just to give a funding boost, but to provide a clear long-term funding model outside of general council tax. However, although I am pleased that the Government have also announced a £240 million increase in this sector, I would also point out that it is not just about money.

To make that point further, I should mentioned Guide at Broomfield, a nursing home in Braintree. It decided to close earlier this year and attributed that closure to financial difficulty. If one consults the Care Quality Commission report, however, one will see that the home’s basic failings had nothing to do with funding. Residents were being left in soiled clothing, and that is a basic standard failing, not a financial one. We could compare that with Beaumont House in Walton-on-the-Naze, in my constituency, which I had the pleasure of visiting recently. It is like a five-star hotel, with all the comforts of a house, where guests are treated like human beings, not just clients. It is not a bad place. I thought I would go there once the good people of Clacton were done with me.

I have no doubt that funding is important, but no amount of money will make up for poor standards, and if we are really to really elder abuse, we need to talk about, and rigorously maintain, standards within the adult social care sector. I was interested to read the suggestion from Age UK about how national guidance should be developed on how conversations about abuse can be started and effectively supported by family members, professionals and the older people themselves. I would certainly back this proposal, and I hope the Minister will meet with Age UK to discuss it. I would also like a statutory definition of a crime against an older person and specific elder-protecting legislation to be introduced, as neither currently exists.

What I really want, however, is to see elder abuse become an aggravated offence, although in calling for that change I recognise the steps that the Government have taken to tackle it. For instance, in 2015 domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour became specific offences under the Serious Crime Act. In the same year, a wilful neglect offence was introduced under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act, so there is now criminal liability when a person has been placed under the care of a medical professional. According to the Government’s impact assessment, the new offence was designed to

“ensure that those responsible for the worst failures in care can be held accountable”,

and to

“act as a deterrent, moderating the conduct of individuals who might otherwise be disposed to behave in ways that would constitute an offence.”

Those are laudable aims, but that has not happened. Perpetrators are not being held to account with firm punishments, and the new offence has failed to prevent any further abuses in care. The example from Cheshire that I gave earlier, and the research carried out by UCL, both took place after its introduction. What is more, the new wilful neglect offence, by its very nature, fails to prevent the abuse of older people who are living in their own homes outside a traditional care setting. They are the forgotten victims of elder abuse, and we must not forget them as we seek to address this issue. To protect those who are still living in their own homes, as well as older people in care who may be vulnerable, we must introduce a new offence that punishes elder abuse properly, regardless of its location. Making elder abuse an aggravated offence will do that, which means that there will be harsher sentences for perpetrators.

A mandatory sentencing uplift is already in place for hate crimes motivated by prejudice based on someone’s race, sexual orientation, religion, or disability. I ask, quite simply, why not age? An anomaly in the law needs to be addressed, and that is a change that we can deliver now. As part of the Government’s efforts to update the hate crime action plan, the Law Commission is currently undertaking a review of hate crime legislation, and I am sending it a letter today. The Government have committed themselves to acting on the commission’s specific proposals, and during the review it will consider whether to make elder abuse an aggravated offence. I hope that it, and the Government, will agree with me that this change is needed now.

Rural Crime and Public Services

Giles Watling Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more. The police have been cut to a level at which they are unable to prevent and respond to crime, and the demand on them is completely unprecedented, not only from new crimes, but as a result of other services being cut.

The police are now unable to respond to the basic task that we ask of them and that the Prime Minister asked them to do at the Police Federation conference eight years ago, which is to prevent and respond to crime—nothing more, nothing less. Police chiefs have warned the Government about the issue time and again. They have warned that local policing is under such strain that the legitimacy of policing is at risk, as the relationship with communities is fading to a point at which prevention, early intervention and core engagement are ineffective. This is a stark warning. Never before have police chiefs, usually incredibly reticent to enter political debate, spoken out so plainly about the risks facing public safety. Only yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, told the Home Affairs Committee that it would be “naive” to dissociate police cuts from rising levels of crime.

While the lack of resources has hampered the police, there is no doubt that crime itself, and the demand on rural police forces, is changing. County lines is a clear and growing threat for rural forces. It has been partly responsible for a serious increase in violent crime in areas that do not traditionally suffer from it. County lines dealers from the cities are exploiting hidden poverty and a cohort of vulnerable youngsters in rural areas. With the numbers of looked-after children and homeless children rising, this is of significant concern. The exploitation of young and vulnerable persons is a common feature in the facilitation of county lines drugs supply, whether for the storage or supply of drugs, the movement of cash, or to secure the use of dwellings held by vulnerable people—commonly referred to as cuckooing.

As the Home Office’s own analysis of the rise in serious violence states, childhood risk factors, including economic stress, mean that interventions with vulnerable young people such as those excluded from school and looked-after children would be successful in reducing violence and drug demand. The Government are aware of this, but so far their response has been muted, and their continued refusal to fund the police properly is felt across the country.

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that it is our job as constituency MPs to stay in touch with our local police forces and to address their concerns? That is what I did, and that is how I managed to raise the precept in our local area and increase the police force there.

[Louise Haigh]

Raising the precept in the way that the Government have done is a fundamentally unfair way to fund police forces across this country. [Interruption.] I am sorry—I do not know which police force area the hon. Gentleman represents, but I am almost positive that raising the precept by 2% will result in significantly more in his force area than in my area of South Yorkshire, or in Northumbria, Cleveland, or many metropolitan areas that have significant demand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I will move on to in due course. The shadow Minister mentioned the impact of county line criminality on rural areas, and I am pleased she did so, because we are both determined to tackle it. That is precisely why the Government have announced, through the serious violence strategy, £3.5 million of funding to bring about a national co-ordination centre to share intelligence and expertise among police forces, particularly in those areas whose experience of gangs is perhaps not to the same extent as that in urban areas, so that they learn not from scratch but from colleagues elsewhere in the country.

The theft of farm equipment can have a devastating impact on farmers. I had the pleasure recently of driving a tractor worth £350,000 in my constituency. I was slightly surprised when the farmer allowed me to reverse it, but it remains intact. What if that equipment is stolen? That small business person has made an enormous investment and may well have taken out loans to pay it off. That theft would be a crime committed against them, their family, their business and their local community. Rural constabularies are aware of such issues.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley raised the issue of police funding. We understand the wish that rural communities are not disadvantaged in the delivery or quality of public services to tackle crime. The Government are committed to providing police forces in England and Wales with the resources they need to do their crucial work. I must, however, set the issue in context. The hon. Lady knows that I only do this when she talks at length about funding. The reason the Government had to make such tough spending decisions after the 2010 election was the economic legacy of the previous Labour Government and the global financial crisis. If we are going to have a good, productive debate, we must remember the historical context in which we were operating.

We have absolutely recognised the resources the police need. That is precisely why in 2015 the then Home Secretary insisted in the spending review that the Government protected overall police funding in real terms, and we have done so since. We have also increased our investment to support police transformation and technology, so that our police can respond to the changing nature of crime.

[Giles Watling]

Will my hon. Friend celebrate the fact that we have succeeded in getting thousands of police out from doing useless paperwork in back offices and back on the frontline of policing?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. One of the challenges to the police over the past few years has been to get warranted officers, who hold positions of responsibility after we have given them their warrant and training, to use their powers and specialist skills in accordance with their warrant. I am delighted that the figures show that constabularies across the country have made extraordinary improvements in using warranted officers in frontline policing. That means more officers on the beat or investigating crime, doing the job they signed up to do, rather than sitting in human resources departments and so on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the very thoughtful speech of the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and the other very thoughtful speeches in this debate. I very much welcome the fact that our Opposition Front-Bench team has chosen to hold this debate on rural crime and public services. Those of us who represent rural constituencies welcome the fact that many people view our communities in very glowing terms. We all know about the green and pleasant land, the apple tree in Linden Lea and so on, and our communities are all of those things—plus we also have a good few mountains in North Wales for good measure—but, like every other community, they have problems. They also have problems that are unique because of their rurality.

I was pleased to hear the emphasis in this debate on criminality pure and simple when it comes to animal abuse. These cases are truly horrific—whether it is hare coursing or badger baiting. Let us be absolutely clear on this: this is not some gentle historical relic of the past of some rural sport and the like; it is criminal behaviour pure and simple. The people who perpetuate these evil practices deserve to have the strong arm of the law used against them.

[Giles Watling]

Would the hon. Lady not include in that abandoning horses in fields to starve? That happens in my area. It is not only criminality, but sheer ignorance as well.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman; it is animal abuse, it is cruelty and it needs to be stamped out. The punishment needs to fit the crime in those areas.

A couple of years ago I held an Adjournment debate in this House on rural crime, in which I highlighted the work of a local initiative—a rural crime mapping scheme—in the wards of Esclusham and Ponciau in my own constituency. The Minister then praised the local endeavour in our area, as well as the work of Farm Watch, the intriguingly named OWL—Online Watch Link—and of course the excellent work of the rural crime team of North Wales police, to which I also pay tribute today.

Many Members have spoken about the impact of police cuts. I must report on the situation in north Wales, using January Home Office figures. Five years ago, North Wales police employed 160 officers for neighbourhood policing and 254 police community support officers. Last year that figure fell to 90 police officers and just 148 police community support officers. That is a worry. Now, we know that there is technology and we welcome new technology—none of us is advocating the return to a sort of era of “Dixon of Dock Green”—but we do recognise that neighbourhood policing is vital if we are serious about tackling crime in our rural communities.

There are many aspects to rural crime, but today I will stick to just one: the issue of speeding on our rural roads, which I asked the Minister about earlier. Many of us are very concerned about the extent of speeding now. We need a major clampdown on speeding and, yes, a justice system that is prepared to be serious in its use of driving bans—something that is not happening to the right degree today.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

I represent a constituency in north Wales, which has a number of urban areas but is also significantly rural, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) said. We have something like 700,000 people in north Wales, spread over 6,000-plus sq km. It is a drive of 82 miles from one end of north Wales to the other, and it would take me 20 miles by 10 miles to cover my constituency. It is a big rural area represented by Members of Parliament in the House today. We have six counties in the North Wales police force area, and we have two languages—Welsh and English—because of the area’s history.

We have an influx of tourists each year, which doubles the population in the key summer months. That brings its own challenges, as my hon. Friend said, such as increased traffic problems, more deaths on roads and an increase in the number of events that need policing. We have individuals who occasionally drink too much on holiday and cause difficulties, and we have increased crime in the summer months. Those challenges are by no means and by no stretch of the imagination the ones facing central London or the inner cities, but they are interesting challenges that need to be addressed by the Government as part of the rural crime debate. We border the two metropolitan areas of Merseyside and Manchester, which have significant crime challenges, such as the promotion of drug and other criminal activity, which are very often transferred to areas of north Wales. We have to be aware of all those issues.

I approach this debate in the light of those challenges for north Wales. We are an area of moderate or reasonably low crime, but I bring to the House the fact that in the past 12 to 15 months crime has significantly increased. I listened with some interest to Members who have seen crime fall in their area. We must remember that this is against a backdrop of having 20,000 fewer officers across the whole of the United Kingdom since I had the honour of being the police Minister in the Home Office. There has been a 6% drop in police numbers—100 fewer officers—in my North Wales police force area, but over the past 18 months there has been a 13% increase in recorded crime in north Wales. The number of murders is at a seven-year high. Shop theft has risen, and it is estimated that its cost is over £128,000 a year in my constituency. Theft from buildings and properties has risen by 37% in the past year and violent crime is up by 21%, with domestic burglary up by 38% across the board.

I accept that this brings many challenges, and I know for a fact that North Wales police officers are doing a sterling job—they are concerned to drive crime down, and they want to do more—but the chief constable himself has said that we face a £2.1 million cut next year because of reduced funding from central Government. It is all very well to talk, as we did earlier, about taxpayers’ money, but central Government money comes from everybody, with the richest and the poorest in our society paying it through direct taxation, while the rises for local rate payers, who are now the source of funding needed to maintain the police service—we have had a significant 5% rise in north Wales—come from everybody, rich and poor, in north Wales entirely on the basis of their property, even though a council tax increase raises less in our area than it would, for example, here in Westminster. There is a funding issue, and it has been well rehearsed.

I support the proposal made from the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to increase police force numbers by about 10,000. That will not get us back to where we were when I did the job, but it would still be a significant increase and it would help to support the thin blue line in north Wales. There are now 1,300 police officers in north Wales, but we must remember that, although they are at work for eight hours in any one day, they are asleep for eight hours and they are off for eight hours, while some are off sick and some are on holiday so, recognising that as a whole, it is an extremely thin blue line.

Crime in urban areas is very important, and antisocial behaviour and a range of other issues do affect my constituency, but there are specific issues of rural crime, which this debate is about, and I want to draw the Minister’s attention to one in particular. I congratulate him on his elevation to the Front Bench, where I know he will do a good job. He represents a north-west constituency that has rural areas, and he comes to my constituency on occasion, so he will know it is a rural one. He has it within his gift today to take action, in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in support of the North Wales police rural unit in tackling sheep attacks and sheep worrying.

The Minister needs to know that in north Wales, and I pay tribute to North Wales police for this, we have a specific unit to deal with rural crime. It deals not just with attacks on sheep, but with attacks on birds, badger baiting and the enforcement of the fox hunting and hare coursing legislation, as well as fly-tipping and the rural issues of metal theft, tractor theft and all such crimes. Its officers do so in a specific and targeted way, dealing with the impact of those crimes, but also working to prevent them by visiting agricultural shows, talking to farmers and coming to farmers markets. They provide information to support the prevention of crime, which is a great use of policing time, rather than just dealing with the criminal activity itself.

The head of the unit, Rob Taylor, and its officers have brought to my attention the vital issue of sheep worrying. I want to put it on the Minister’s agenda because he can make a difference today by saying that he will act on it. Sheep worrying in my north Wales constituency has resulted in 648 dead animals in the past year. Farmers have shot 52 dogs because they were sheep worrying. There have been 449 livestock attacks. Damage to sheep and livestock has cost farmers thousands of pounds. Farmers in Lixwm in my constituency have experienced two attacks in 48 hours.

Why do I say that the Minister can take action? There are some clear things he can do, so let me put them on the record. I know those figures because North Wales police have kept a record of those attacks. At present, attacks on livestock in general—not just sheep—are not a recordable offence across the United Kingdom. The Home Office could make that a recordable offence so that we know how many attacks have taken place and where, and the extent of the problem.

The Government also need to address the fact that the police have no powers to seize dogs that undertake attacks. The fine for irresponsible dog owners whose dogs attack sheep is £1,000, but that does not even cover the cost of dead sheep following attacks on some of my constituents’ farms, and no compensation is paid to people who lose sheep as a result of criminal activity. It is very difficult to get sheep insurance if there has already been an attack. Finally, no disqualification order is applied to the owner of a dog that attacks sheep and kills perhaps 10 or 15 of them, as has happened on some of the farms in my constituency.

It is in the gift of the Minister to address those issues. He could make it a recordable offence, increase the fine, give the police powers to seize dogs legally, and give disqualification orders to dog owners whose dogs misbehave in a way that causes carnage, increased costs and damage.

The all-party parliamentary group on animal welfare, ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), has produced an excellent report on those issues which has been submitted to DEFRA. The Minister could indicate today that he will look at the issues. Although that would not increase police numbers or necessarily reduce crime in my urban areas, which is still a severe issue, or prevent murders linked to county line issues and other drug offences, it could help, in a small way, to support the efforts of the North Wales police rural unit to tackle sheep worrying and sheep crime. Many people think it is a frivolous crime, but it comes at a cost.

[Giles Watling]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Hanson]

I was about to finish, but I will certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Giles Watling]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am sorry for interrupting just as he was finishing. Does he think it might be helpful to reintroduce a form of licensing or registration for dogs so that we know where they are and who owns them?

[David Hanson]

There are a range of issues and that could certainly be looked at. In the immediate term, however, although my force records the crimes, we do not know how many animal attacks there are against livestock in Essex, for example, because the police are not required to record them. Recording them would be a start, and increasing the fine and allowing the police to disqualify dog owners are other major proposals. Important though I think other issues are, none of those proposals would be a major expenditure item for the police or for DEFRA. I hope they would act as a deterrent and help tackle this particular crime, which has caused mayhem in my constituency. They have the support of North Wales police. If I can have extra police, I will take them, and if we can deal with urban crime, I will take that, but the Minister has it in his gift to address those issues and I hope he will seriously consider doing so today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) in this important debate. As a district councillor and long-time resident of Tendring, I know that rural crime is all too common in the Tendring District Council area. To demonstrate that point further, only today I received a telephone call and an email from a couple of local residents who have both recently been the victims of rural crime. In the first incident, a constituent contacted me to report fly-tipping. I hear similar concerns on a weekly basis in my area, and fly-tipping is the most significant rural crime we face locally. It is estimated that my local authority spent over £74,000 last year alone on tackling this issue, which is £74,000 that should have been spent on improving public services for local taxpayers. That is an outrage: taxes should not have to be spent in this way.

Moreover, if the council is spending £74,000, unfortunate private landowners are probably spending much more. I say probably because we have no way of telling how much it costs them to clear up the mess. I am told by my local Essex police district commander, the excellent Paul Wells, that, on the whole, private landowners just get on with it and clear up the mess, so the actual cost to them and to the public is far higher than the headline figures suggest.

We must also consider the potential health risks of fly-tipping, because some people—some builders, et cetera—will just dump stuff that may contain hazardous waste, such as asbestos and the like. Consequently, we must continue to tackle this issue very strongly, and I agree with the Country Land and Business Association that greater penalties are needed. We need to punish offenders, and we need to make sure we use all opportunities for enforcement. Unfortunately, it appears that is not currently happening.

According to figures from the CLA, there were 1,132 incidents of fly-tipping in Tendring in 2016-17, yet no fines were given out, no vehicles were seized and nobody was prosecuted. To put it another way, 1,170 incidents were investigated, at a cost of £38,000 to the public purse, nobody was punished, and no costs were recouped.

Moving away from fly-tipping, an equally important local crime in our rural areas is dog theft, which has not been mentioned this afternoon. I am regularly contacted about this issue. I have previously raised the concerns of local residents in a Westminster Hall debate on the sale of puppies, and I would be grateful for more information from the Minister on what the Government plan to do about that issue.

According to Missing Pets Bureau, as many as 38% of all animals reported lost have been stolen, and as many as 60% of stolen dogs are tragically never recovered. I agree with the 93,557 individuals, and counting, who have signed a petition calling for the theft of a pet to be reclassified as a specific crime in its own right.

Rural crime in Tendring is not all doom and gloom. Our police are doing great work locally, and I thank our long-time rural and heritage crime officer Andy Long and all his Essex police colleagues for their hard work. Thanks to their efforts, the cost of rural crime has fallen by £10 million since 2010, meaning that the true cost of rural crime is now around £39.2 million—that is £39.2 million too much—which shows how effective our local police forces can be and demonstrates that things are moving in the right direction.

That brings me to my final point, because this debate, however focused on rural communities, comes back to a common word used in many debates in this House: enforcement. From knife crime to rural crime, we need bobbies on the beat to act, which is why I am delighted that the campaign I launched last year with fellow Essex MPs, as mentioned earlier, to get more flexibility in the police precept was successful.

Police and crime commissioners are now able to raise precept contributions by up to £1 a month. Together, this will mean force budgets can increase by up to £450 million nationally this year. There will be a welcome boost of £8.8 million across Essex to pay for around 150 new officers. These men and women, while enjoying the rural beauty of our fantastic sunshine coast of Clacton, will find their work cut out for them, yet I am pleased they will have the Government’s support.

I am also pleased that we have 150 extra officers in Essex, because I have just been informed on my mobile device that the police are currently out in my area looking for an escaped ostrich.

[Mr Speaker]

It is always useful to have a bit of additional information. We are deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman.