Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Holly Lynch ExcerptsMonday 18th May 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a real shame that we could not hear the rest of the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor). She chairs the APPG on no recourse to public funds, and I know that she has done a lot of really important work. We will have to hear the rest of her contribution on another occasion.
It is a pleasure to be back at the Dispatch Box on behalf of Her Majesty’s official Opposition on such an important piece of legislation—important not just because of what it will do but what it paves the way for. It is historic, in that it starts its passage through the House of Commons for the second time during a crisis that we know will shape this country, and what we need from legislation like this, for years to come.
With that in mind, as so many others have said, this country has never been more aware or more appreciative of the contribution of migrant workers to the UK. We can all agree with the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) that the efforts of key workers have been the stuff of legend. To those working in our NHS, care homes and research labs, and in our fields and factories, keeping food on the shelves—to all those working right across the key sectors—we are truly grateful for all that they are doing, and we need legislation that recognises that contribution. As we have said, we all go out and clap for our carers and our key workers every Thursday, but today the detail of the Government’s approach says to them that they are not skilled enough and not paid enough to be valued in their proposed new immigration system. It is not as though the Government are proposing to work with right hon. and hon. Members to shape a better policy. Instead, the Bill grants sweeping Henry VIII powers to Ministers, diminishing the role of Parliament and MPs.
I am incredibly grateful to all those who have taken part in this important debate. My hon. Friends the Members for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe), for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), and others, including the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), made important points about indefinite detention, and we will be looking to work cross-party with all MPs on amendments to address some of those concerns. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) made the point that we are being asked to consider only half a Bill, with my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Streatham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) rightly saying that we cannot simply give the Government a blank cheque on immigration policy. They ask us to trust them on this, but the hostile environment is a very clear reason why I am afraid we simply cannot do that.
Several hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East, for Streatham, and for Wirral South, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—and so many others—have raised concerns about the delegated powers contained in the Bill. The previous version of this legislation, which failed to complete its Committee stage because of the snap general election last year, contained an almost identical clause 4. As the shadow Home Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), said in his opening remarks, the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report on that Bill articulated very clearly its concerns about this clause:
“We are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous; and to do so by negative procedure regulations”.
The Committee expressed “significant concerns” about clause 4(5), recommending that it be removed altogether
“unless the Government can provide a proper and explicit justification for its inclusion and explain how they intend to use the power”,
as it
“confers broad discretion on Ministers to levy fees or charges on any person seeking leave to enter or remain in the UK who, pre-exit, would have had free movement rights under EU law.”
This is bad not just for parliamentary democracy, but for our public services and the economy. Parliamentary scrutiny is the most effective way for stakeholders to work with MPs to shape legislation to respond to the needs of the country. It is not just Labour Members who are concerned about the delegated powers in the Bill, but the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, the British Medical Association, London First, Universities UK, the National Union of Students, trade unions and the Children’s Society, as just a sample of the cross-section of organisations that share our concerns that a transfer of powers to the Executive is not the way to develop good-quality legislation. On that basis, we simply cannot sign off on this legislation.
So many others have said today that what we take exception to now more than ever is an approach that puts rhetoric ahead of the practical solutions that this country so desperately needs to find if we are to make it through the coronavirus crisis. Nothing is more important in this fight than the key workers in our NHS and in social care in particular. Given that some 29% of doctors working in our NHS hospitals and 12% of the overall health care workers in the UK are from overseas, the Bill has massive implications for the wellbeing and strength of the healthcare workforce.
The Government’s inability to address the systemic problems in the social care sector also extends, I am afraid to say, to their immigration policy. The Institute for Public Policy Research recently found that four out of five employees from EEA countries working full time in social care would be ineligible to work in the UK under the £25,600 salary threshold proposed in the Government’s immigration White Paper published in February. As much as hon. Members might talk about the ability to respond quickly through the shortage occupation list and the Migration Advisory Committee, special consideration for the social care sector in a future immigration system has already been ruled out, so how do the Government plan to respond to the shortage of workers, the impact of which we are already experiencing and which will only become more acute, given the demand for social care as a result of the crisis?
Across sectors, but particularly in the NHS, it is not just the NHS surcharge that does not seem fair: the immigration skills charge is another problem. It is paid by employers who recruit migrants on tier 2 visas and, come 1 January, employers will also have to pay for staff to come from EU countries as well as non-EU countries. The immigration skills charge is also paid by NHS trusts which, if they cannot find clinical specialists here in the UK, have no choice but to find them from overseas. I asked my local NHS trust, Calderdale and Huddersfield, how much the Government take back from it in immigration skills charges. In the last financial year, the trust had to pay Government just short of £163,000 out of its annual budget in immigration skills charges. So because we have clinical skills shortages in many specialist areas in the UK, and in the absence of any Government strategy to respond to that domestically, the NHS has to hire from overseas. The same Government then punish trusts for doing so by demanding those fees, taking much needed cash back from their budgets. That seems grossly unfair. It indicates not only that our immigration approach simply does not work for the NHS and social care, but neither does our domestic skills policy.
A number of other important points have been raised in this Second Reading debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) spoke of his pride that Bradford is a city of sanctuary, and I share his pride as my constituency is part of a valley of sanctuary. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington, a great music lover, spoke in his typically passionate speech of the contribution that migrants and visitors to the UK make to the music sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) said that to assess a person based on what they earn is a blunt tool which masks their true value. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton reminded us that the Prime Minister himself understands the value of migrants working in the NHS, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) made the powerful point that those who have died working in the NHS were from every corner of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston is a passionate campaigner on the rights of children in particular and raised a number of important questions that we will return to in Committee.
In closing, I want to say to all those workers in the NHS who have had their visas extended for one year free of charge, it is not that the Government are doing them a favour—they are doing our country a massive favour by staying in our NHS and fighting on our frontline to save our lives. As others have said, we urge the Government to extend those visa extensions across the social care sector. We have heard the call from the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and we will very much play as constructive a role as we can in Committee, but we cannot support legislation that transfers powers to the Executive and away from Parliament alongside proposals that will only put even greater pressure on the NHS, social care and a number of other key sectors. That is why we will vote against the Bill this evening.
Policing (England and Wales)
Holly Lynch Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I join others in paying tribute to the three excellent maiden speeches we have heard this evening, but particularly that from the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson). As a fellow daughter of a police officer, I was particularly moved by her speech, and I look forward to working with her on all matters relating to policing over the coming months and years. I also join others in paying tribute to our incredibly dedicated and brave police officers and police staff across the country, not least in West Yorkshire, under Chief Constable John Robins. They work incredibly hard to keep us and all our communities safe, and I pay tribute to them for the work they do.
The uplift in funding is incredibly welcome, not least because it is essential. Since 2010, West Yorkshire police has lost 1,200 frontline officers and 800 members of staff, which has undeniably had an impact on their ability to do the basics, let alone respond to the increased complexity of crime and the social challenges that are now the responsibility of the police. I have spoken at length in this Chamber about my experiences of being out with officers in my constituency and how one particularly harrowing experience led to the Protect the Protectors campaign. I welcome the investment in technology and advances in forensics that stand to make the police more effective, but I know that in almost every aspect of policing the number of boots on the ground really does matter.
West Yorkshire police is the fourth largest force in the country, taking in Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield districts. The Leeds district alone is bigger than 12 other police forces. As part of the police parliamentary scheme, I spent Friday night policing Leeds city centre, an area that regularly welcomes over 100,000 people on a night out, and I again pay tribute to the work that officers do there to keep us safe and maintain law and order over the course of a night. We have diverse communities and an awful lot to offer, but, sadly, that sometimes presents challenges with which many of us will be familiar. Our district encompasses a number of Prevent priority areas, and its socioeconomic characteristics and pockets of deprivation increase policing needs. It includes urban areas such as Leeds and Bradford, but also covers some of the sweeping rural areas that straddle the Pennines. The police grant must recognise the pressures that result from complex, evolving crimes such as cyber-crime and human trafficking, and the demands involved in preventing the sexual and criminal exploitation of children and conducting missing persons inquiries. That is why the review of the police funding formula will be so important. It was due in 2019, and the Minister said in his opening speech that it would take place in “years to come”. I urge him to get on with the process as quickly as possible.
In West Yorkshire, we also face challenges relating to firearms and serious and organised crime. Policing priorities have rightly changed to reflect increased awareness of exploitation in all its ugly forms, from child sexual exploitation—of which nearly 6,500 instances were recorded last year—to human trafficking and child criminal exploitation, but although the resources allocated to such exploitation have also increased, they have not yet increased sufficiently to meet the demand.
As we have heard from Members on both sides of the House this evening, a great many of the challenges facing the police relate directly to the pressures caused by cuts in other services. For example, West Yorkshire police responded to more than 20,000 cases of missing people in 2017, which is staggering and completely unsustainable. We have had a self-funded safeguarding uplift to meet that demand, but those officers have come from neighbourhood policing, so the numbers are down in all the vital neighbourhood policing teams with which I work so closely in my role as an MP—as we all do.
Like my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), I have been taking part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which is an incredibly insightful experience—especially as we look forward to debating, I hope imminently. the police powers and protection Bill—and I urge all MPs to do the same. During the recess last week I participated in two night shifts, one with PC Andy Barron, who deals with road policing in West Yorkshire, and one with Inspector Katie Woodmason, when I saw how people on a night out in Leeds city centre are kept safe.
I am sorry to say that the rhetoric in the Minister’s statements seems a world away from the reality of the conversations and experiences that I have had on the frontline. When I shadowed out-of-hours mental health service workers, I spent all night with two police officers who were unable to leave someone who had been detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. They could not leave a young nurse on her own with a gentleman who did not agree that he should have been detained, and who was becoming increasingly aggressive. West Yorkshire police saw a 33% increase in the number of mental health-related incidents in 2018, which meant that they were required to respond to an additional 5,000 incidents.
Having started the Protect the Protectors campaign after shadowing single-crew police officers, I know that reduced numbers mean that officers themselves are particularly vulnerable to assaults when they are out on their own. I hope that the Minister is revisiting some of the resulting legislation, and will consider using any or all measures in the police powers and protections Bill to ensure that officers are kept safe. I also hope that the Minister who sums up the debate will tell us when we can expect the introduction of that Bill.
I know that the Government are looking into a number of complicated police pension issues that have been mentioned this evening. Perversely, owing to the changes in the thresholds at which public sector workers start to pay tax on their pension contributions, some senior officers are beginning to receive annual tax bills that are greater than their annual salaries. Unlike doctors, police officers cannot reduce their hours or withdraw their service to mitigate the impact of such bills. I understand that the Treasury is conducting a review of the issue with a view to shaping the next Budget. I ask the policing Minister to look specifically at how those perverse tax disincentives can be reformed, not least because it seems that police forces themselves are paying tax bills for individuals, who are reimbursed by the Home Office, which is reimbursed by the Treasury, to square off contributions to HMRC. In order to pay back the money in the long term, officers are realistically having to hand significant chunks of their pensions back on retirement in order to settle all the accumulated annual allowance taxes. There must be a better way of structuring police pensions to avoid that financial merry-go-round.
Police pension arrangements need to be much clearer, both for officers themselves and for the public purse. More importantly, we need to ensure that we do not haemorrhage experience and leadership in policing at a time when we can least afford it if we are to reach anything like the recruitment targets set by the Government.
The uplift in numbers reflected in this grant is incredibly welcome, but the settlement is for just one year, and does not reflect the increased complexity of crime in areas such as West Yorkshire. The grant provides for no inflationary increases, and core funding has increased only by the uplift funding. Therefore, all pay rises and non-pay inflation must be met by existing budgets. With that in mind, I hope very much that we will see the review of the police funding formula sooner rather and later, so that our police officers can do what they do best—keeping us and our communities safe.
Policing and Crime
Holly Lynch Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is an opportune moment to be having this debate. I am particularly proud to take part following two exceptional maiden speeches this afternoon.
I welcome a number of the decisions this Government have taken recently. They have listened to communities and to chief officers and delivered a significant uplift in spending on policing. However, it is not unrealistic to say that this demonstrates nothing short of a complete U-turn in their approach to policing, given the Government’s conduct between 2010 and 2019. We have lost 21,000 police officers and 600 police stations have closed across England and Wales. One of those stations is in my constituency: Sowerby Bridge police station, where “Happy Valley” was filmed. The building was sold off at a time when the West Yorkshire police force was doing all it could to generate the cash needed to keep funding boots on the ground. That station simply is not coming back.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making an important point about the closure of police stations, which we have also seen in Hounslow. Such closures contribute to the feeling of greater distance between the police and our communities. Does she agree that that is part of the reason why there has been a reduction in people’s confidence in the police, both in terms of dealing with crimes and achieving the detection rates that we need?
Holly Lynch
I thank my hon. Friend for making that very important point. She is quite right that, as those 600 police stations have closed in our communities and the numbers of officers has declined, people are feeling that that access to justice is further away from them than ever before, and that is contributing to that lack of confidence in the ability of our police officers to secure the results that we so desperately need in our communities.
In addition to reductions in officers and police stations, there have been changes to officer recruitment and training. I do not necessarily disagree with those changes, but they do mean that the new officers promised by the Prime Minister will not be operational until 2023. We have a long way to go before we start to the feel the change in approach from this Conservative Government towards policing on our streets and in our communities.
I look forward to the police powers and protections Bill which, as I understand it, will legislate for the creation of a police covenant; like the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), I am very much in favour of that. It will also allow special constables to join the Police Federation and allow another look at the legality of emergency driving, to ensure that all police officers know where they stand when tasked with driving in an emergency situations. I know that all such measures will be welcomed by both the public and the officers themselves.
I am currently taking part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which I recommend to all colleagues, particularly our new colleagues. It offers a truly insightful frontline experience of what is going on right across policing. Having had to call 999 from a police car for urgent back-up for a single-crewed officer whom I was shadowing on the front line, I decided to start the Protect the Protectors campaign, which finally resulted in law changes introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in 2018.
The Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 created a new offence of “assault against an emergency worker” with the maximum penalty increased from six months to 12 months. The Act also created a statutory aggravating factor within a raft of other offences including sexual assault, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and manslaughter, which means that the judge must consider the fact that the offence was committed against an emergency worker as an aggravating factor, meriting an increase in the sentence. I was reassured but somewhat taken aback to hear the Minister in his opening remarks talk about the Government’s plan to double sentences for those who assault police officers. Although the 2018 Act was very much a step in the right direction, I cannot stress enough how hard we had to fight Ministers to secure the increase from six months to 12 months; they rejected our initial proposals for 24 months. We very much welcome that step to double sentences, but it is hard to describe how hard we had to fight for it. We had our proposals rejected by the then Government just 18 months ago.
While we make the laws in here, we ask the police to uphold and enforce them out there, and we certainly agree that to assault an emergency service worker is to show complete disregard for law and order. It is a breakdown in our shared values and in democracy itself, and that must be reflected in sentencing, particularly for repeat offenders. It saddens me to say that the changes in the law are having a minimal impact. There were over 30,000 assaults on police officers in England and Wales in 2018-19, as well as a 13% increase in attacks classified as assault without injury on a constable, and a 27% increase in assault with injury on a constable, compared with the previous year. There were 1,897 recorded assaults last year in West Yorkshire alone—the highest figure in England and Wales outside the Met area. Will the Minister reopen this issue as part of the police powers and protections Bill, and look at minimum sentencing, enhanced penalties for repeat offenders and the abolition of suspended sentences for such crimes?
The other element of the “Protect the Protectors” Bill that we were not able to nail down in statute related to spitting. I have shared horror stories on several occasions in this Chamber about emergency service workers having been spat at, and the anxiety of having to wait up to six months for test results to determine whether they have contracted a potentially life-changing communicable disease, having to take antiviral treatments as a precaution, and on occasion having to adhere to restrictions about interacting with close family and friends, based on advice given by medical professionals. We initially wanted to introduce a new law to require someone who spits at a police officer or any other emergency service worker to provide a blood sample in order to determine whether they have a communicable disease. Such a measure would give the victim some clarity about whether antiviral treatments would be required. The new law would have made it a crime for the perpetrator to refuse to provide a sample.
Advice provided by the NHS at the time argued that the chances of contracting such diseases were so low that any such testing was not necessary, as contracting the disease from being spat at or bitten was almost impossible. The problem is that even today the advice given to frontline officers presenting at A&E having been spat at is a course of antiviral treatment and six months of testing as a precaution. Will the Minister agree to have another look at this issue with colleagues in the Department of Health, to ensure that we are removing as much stress and anxiety from the situation as possible for dedicated police officers and their colleagues across the emergency services who have been subjected to such vile behaviour in the line of duty?
I want to take this opportunity to highlight the issues of recruitment and retention in police leadership. Last summer I invited doctors from Calderdale to meet the then Health Minister to discuss how the annual lifetime allowances on their pensions were affecting them. Although the Government have found a temporary sticking plaster for this issue for clinicians, the same problem persists right across the public sector—not least in policing. In a letter to the chair of the Police Pension Scheme Advisory Board sent just this week, the Policing Minister argued that although he is open to the reform of police pensions, the case
“does not demonstrate evidence of recruitment and retention problems and a resulting impact on operational service delivery”.
Having recently taken part in the police service parliamentary scheme, I can tell the Minister that, anecdotally, this is certainly discouraging officers from seeking promotion to the higher ranks, and senior officers openly tell me that this is the case.
Research undertaken by the National Police Chiefs’ Council shows that the number of applicants for chief officer jobs is declining, as is the length of tenure in those roles. My own force, West Yorkshire police, had just one applicant on the previous two occasions it needed to fill the post of chief constable, and Northumbria police force recently had to open recruitment for a chief constable three times. Will the Minister have another look at the issue, given that, perversely, senior officers are receiving bizarre yearly tax bills that are greater than their annual salary?
I very much welcome some of the decisions taken, but there is certainly a long way to go for the Government to win back trust from communities and from within policing.
Public Services
Holly Lynch Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate today and to follow the hon. Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who made some very important points, although it will not surprise her to hear that we may differ on some of the detail on some of the issues that she raised.
There is a great deal that could be said about public services today, but I wish, in the time that I have, to focus my remarks on education, as so many others have done. It seemed as though, embarking on his leadership campaign, the Prime Minister understood that public services were running on empty, with the public so sick of austerity that his own prospects would be undermined if he did not offer more. The announcement that more money will be made available for schools in his first speech as Prime Minister reflected that and gave teachers and parents hope that the proposed levelling up would bring some much-needed respite to the relentless cuts that have been compromising their ability to educate the next generation. The reality is that the latest funding proposals fail to reverse the cuts that schools have suffered since 2015, with 16,523 schools set to have less money per pupil in 2020 in real terms than they had in 2015.
I heard the comments of the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), whom I always enjoy listening to, but I have to say to him that, even factoring in the latest funding in Calderdale, 76 of 95 schools have suffered cuts to their funding per pupil, with schools losing out on £39.4 million between 2015 and 2020, which equates to a £215 per pupil loss. The consequences of the lack of funding in our schools is that we have the largest class sizes in the developed world. At schools such as Beech Hill in Halifax, the difference between funding and the amount needed to protect per pupil funding in real terms is £1.1 million, which is £602 per pupil and is the salary of around six teachers.
In our secondary schools, although the levelling up has helped budgets in the two grammar schools in my constituency on a per pupil basis, Trinity Academy at Sowerby Bridge lost out on £554 per pupil between 2015 and 2020, Halifax Academy lost out on £882 and Park Lane lost out on a staggering £1,151 per pupil, which is the equivalent of around 10 teachers’ salaries.
Calderdale Against School Cuts, which works tirelessly to defend and restore school budgets, has stressed locally that funding announcements leave schools where they were 13 years ago and that the promise of £7.1 billion by 2022-23 becomes £4.3 billion once inflation is accounted for.
I have heard others mention that Jon Andrews, deputy head of research at the Education Policy Institute, has cautiously said that the Prime Minister’s drive to even up cash for schools implies that funding should be equal despite the fact that children’s circumstances and opportunities differ. He added:
“Any attempt to crudely level up funding would disproportionately direct additional funding towards the least disadvantaged schools with the least challenging intakes, at a time when progress in closing the attainment gap has stalled, and may be about to go into reverse.”
In the cold light of day, the facts are that four in five state schools in England will be financially worse off next year than they were in 2015. The promised £7.1 billion over three years is worth £4.3 billion when inflation is taken into account, and that will not restore funding levels to pay for the quality of education that the next generation deserves, or even the aspiration that is in the Queen’s Speech itself. This simply does not make sense, as we all agree that education is one of the most effective routes out of poverty— and we have heard that here today—in terms of social mobility, whether it is in schools or higher or further education.
The outlook for further education is no brighter. Calderdale College in Halifax has been rated No. 1 in West Yorkshire for 16-to-18 achievement. Although the college has aspiration in abundance, it has had to make some really tough decisions due to a lack of funding. It has been difficult to recruit and retain staff in specialist areas. Almost all of its outreach centres have had to close. Adult learning courses, including tourism, sign language, and construction trades have been cut and fallen victim to cuts in the adult education budget, and it has reduced its ESOL provision by 50%.
I wish to mention an email that I received this week from a brilliant head teacher, Mungo Sheppard, at Ash Green primary in Mixenden, saying what a difference the national school breakfast programme is making to children at Ash Green. Every single one of us should be horrified to hear that at least half a million children in the UK arrive at school too hungry to learn. Family Action, which is delivering the programme with Magic Breakfast, has found that children in primary schools such as Ash Green where bagels are provided for breakfast achieve, on average, up to two months’ additional academic progress over the course of a year.
Ash Green is one of 1,775 schools in disadvantaged communities across the country to take part in the programme. Although it is funded by the soft drinks levy, that contract will come to an end in March 2020. With that in mind, I very much hope that the Secretary of State will reaffirm this Government’s commitment to the national school breakfast programme so that children at Ash Green and at schools all over the country continue to learn on a decent breakfast.
I have very little time to talk about policing today, but I do very much welcome the inclusion in the Queen’s Speech of proposals for a police protection Bill. Having worked so hard on the protect the protectors law—the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018—with a number of colleagues, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), it pains me to say that that Act simply is not working in delivering the protections that we would all like to see for our officers out on the streets. Therefore, I very much welcome the opportunities to discuss further any and all means that we can now use to make sure that police officers are safe, so that they can keep our communities safe, too. I look forward to having those discussions.
In a nutshell, for a debate on public services, there was an awful lot I could have covered. However, learning has the power to transform lives. To invest in education is the surest investment that any Government could possibly make. It is only when people realise their potential that the country realises its potential, and never before has that been so important.
Royal Commission on Police Funding
Holly Lynch Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
I understand the point, and I will address it, but my point is that I am not sure that a royal commission is the right solution at the moment for addressing some of the challenges that we know about. We have the capacity among the Government, the political process in this place and police leadership to work through them ourselves. I mentioned the spending review, and that is the major opportunity in the short term. We must not lose sight of getting it right or be distracted by the idea of royal commissions.
We are working closely with the police to look at demand and cost pressures and to ensure that the bid into the spending review is properly informed. With the police we are working through the question of how much further we can go in making the police more efficient and productive on behalf of the taxpayer. We are looking at the balance between crime prevention and the reaction to crime. We are looking at how we can give better support to frontline officers, because it is clear that we can and should do that. We are looking at system issues—issues that have rolled down through the ages, but that continue to be relevant, such as the balance between the centre and the local, the question of how we build and deliver national capabilities and the fundamental question of how we learn from the past for the next stage of upgrading police technology across this fragmented system.
How do we develop more consistent standards across the fragmented system? How do we do a better job of spreading innovation and best practice? Some of that best practice is frankly brilliant, but it exists in pockets. How do we ensure that it is spread across the system? How do we ensure that the fragmented system takes a more systemic approach to tackling some of the perennial problems that it faces? How do we ensure that we allocate resources in the fairest possible way? Those are challenges that we know we have to address, and we are working together with the police to do so. I simply am not persuaded that a royal commission will help those things in the immediate specific context, but I will come back to the point. First, I will give way to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who is a great supporter of the police.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) for eloquently setting out the challenges facing the police. Will the Minister give us a little more information on the points he was making? I am aware of the work Tom Winsor is undertaking with forces as they go through their assessments of what crime demand will look like in the coming years, with a view then to look at the resources required to match that. What might the timeline and the process be? However we approach having to meet resources in the future, that information and analysis will be important.
Mr Hurd
The hon. Lady is superbly informed and passionate about policing. She makes a good point and illustrates something I was trying to capture: the degree to which the police are changing and responding to challenge. The challenge to police leadership from Her Majesty’s independent inspectorate was, “You don’t do a good enough job of anticipating and managing future demand.” That sounds critical, but we know the reality. Police leadership is stretched in dealing with the demand in front of it.
The challenge from the inspectorate is that we need to do a better job of anticipating future demand, and the instrument was the force management statement. There were some grumblings and criticism at the start of that process, but every force complied with it. The inspectorate handled that process very well. We have all our first force management statements in, and we are now into a second iteration of that process. That is a good example of where the police have recognised the need for change, prodded by external eyes and external challenge. The system is now working together to improve on the first iteration, and I am encouraged by that.
I recognise the clarity of the argument made by the hon. Member for Eastbourne, and I understand its drivers. I have tried to explain why I am not persuaded in the short term that a royal commission is the answer to some of the challenges we have to work through with the police in the immediate context, which is the critical spending review. We have to get that right, because it will shape the future of policing for the next three to five years.
I want to close on a more constructive and positive note. Looking at the history of police reform in this country going back centuries, it is striking that the same questions are always asked. They tend to come back to, “What is the right balance between the centre and the local?”, “Who are the police accountable to?”, and, “How do we strike the right balance between law and order and the protection of individual liberties?” Then there is the fundamental question of, “Have we got the right structure of policing?” That tends to come back, as it has over the years, to the question of, “What is the right structure in terms of the number of police forces?” If we look at the length of history, we have come down from 200-odd forces to 43, and the question whether it is the right structure is still being asked.
The reality is this: the system has real strengths in local accountability and ensuring that local police forces are attuned to local need and accountable to the residents and citizens they serve. The hon. Gentleman spoke about piecemeal reform, but I would argue that the reforms to the police system since 2010 have not been piecemeal. They have been extremely significant, not least the introduction of police and crime commissioners to further sharpen local accountability. That is a real strength in the system that the public understand and respect, but the reality—it is heard from every police audience—is that the system is extremely challenged by the current environment of policing, not least because more and more crime simply does not respect borders, because it is either online or physically runs across borders, such as county lines. The fragmented police system struggles with this environment of rapid change. Although a lot of change is going on, it is driven at a slow and unsteady pace across the system, and the police recognise that.
As it has been over time, the whole question of whether this is the right policing structure continues to be valid, and it will continue to be asked. I happen to think that we can do a great deal to make the system work smarter, and that is one of my major priorities, but the political reality is that no party—Conservative, Labour or any other—has a mandate from the British people to take a big-bang approach to restructuring policing, even if it wanted to. I have no doubt that whoever is in power, we will come back to the question whether we have the right structure to combat modern crime and modern demand on the police as the police evolve, as we understand it through the police’s own understanding and as we build capability in the system to look ahead a bit further, which is one of my priorities. In that context, there may well be merits to and an argument for an independent look at that.
Visit of President Trump: Policing
Holly Lynch Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Mr Hurd
I understand the hon. Lady’s point about police resources in Durham. Arrangements for these events have historically relied on good mutual arrangements, and they are the subject of frank conversations between those co-ordinating events in gold command and the co-ordination centre, and local police chiefs who obviously have to make decisions based on local policing needs at that time. On the basis of what I have heard, I am satisfied that those conversations have taken place in the right way, and that the outcomes are satisfactory for all concerned. We will not know the total cost of the visit until it has concluded, but it will run into millions, and of course it will be disclosed.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
The photos of the accommodation in Essex that awaits officers who have been drafted to the capital are shameful. I have no doubt that in an emergency situation our brave officers would not think twice about using such accommodation, but this is not an emergency and planning for this visit has taken place over three months. The Minister said that the situation is being managed, but can he assure officers that they will not be sleeping on mats in sports halls this evening?
Police Funding
Holly Lynch Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate. West Yorkshire police is the fourth largest force in the country and, as I have outlined many times before, it is facing new types of crime as well as old types of crime. However, a 35% reduction in funding since 2010 has resulted in almost 2,000 fewer officers and members of staff, which represents a reduction of 20% of the force.
To give the House a sense of the pressures facing the force, on any one day in West Yorkshire there is one police officer on duty for every 2,097 members of the public. On average, the force will make 136 arrests every day, with a staggering 43 of those related to domestic violence. They will attend 38 house burglaries, 44 thefts from vehicles, 16 thefts of vehicles, four serious violent crimes, seven robberies, 57 assaults, 17 sexual offences and 159 incidents of antisocial behaviour, and deal with 141 incidents of domestic abuse in total. Non-recent child sexual exploitation and abuse investigations now account for 33% of all investigations within West Yorkshire police. A third of all the investigative capacity in the force is dealing with non-recent CSE. There were 184 offences relating to modern-day slavery in 2016, compared with just 19 three years ago.
Firearms will be the main focus of my speech today. There has been a particularly disturbing increase in the discharge of firearms in West Yorkshire over the past two years, with firearms predominantly being used by organised criminal gangs as a means of resolving disputes and of intimidating rivals and innocent members of the public alike. Members will not need me to remind them that it was a firearm that facilitated the murder of our friend and colleague Jo Cox by the right-wing extremist Thomas Mair. Sadly, we are no strangers to extremism in West Yorkshire, with several Prevent priority areas presenting a continuously evolving threat for the Police to assess and manage.
For all the great things about West Yorkshire, the prevalence of extreme ideology and violent and organised crime means that our firearms capabilities are incredibly important. As the shadow Minister said in her exceptional opening speech, the Government announcement in April 2016 that they were setting aside £143 million of funding in order to hire an extra 1,000 armed officers by spring 2018 was welcome and would have reversed the effects of the 1,000 armed officers lost between 2010 and 2016. However, only 650 of those officers have been recruited so far.
I want to ask the Minister specifically about the inter-operability of authorised firearms officers and about variations in the duration and the type of training they receive. With the exception of counter-terrorist specialist firearms officers, who train for much longer, I am aware that the length of training of firearms officers to meet armed response vehicle standards varies between 10 and 12 weeks in different forces, but it is accredited by the College of Policing. However, the requirements for other firearms officers, such as Ministry of Defence police or diplomatic protection officers, are different, and they may train for in the region of four weeks to meet different standards.
If the threat level increases to critical and we deploy Operation Temperer, and all AFOs—authorised firearms officers—with significant variations in training and experience are redeployed all over the country, how do we manage their interoperability? Of the around 6,250 authorised firearms officers in the UK, what proportion are trained to ARV standards and what proportion do not meet that standard? In the event of Operation Temperer being deployed, I fear that some firearms officers could find themselves in situations for which they have not trained. As the uplift is proving slower to deliver than expected, would it not make sense to ensure that all AFOs are trained to ARV standards to have confidence in that benchmark and in the interoperability of armed officers?
Mr Wallace
I would be pleased to answer those specific questions. As for the ARV part of the uplift, we are over and above the original plans, so we are above target and the process is now complete. For the CTSFOs, which is the higher standard—I have been to visit Wakefield, where they do some of their training—the importance of that role is that they have to be so specialised that there is a high failure rate. We must ensure that we maintain standards, but we are on track to fulfil that requirement at the same time.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the Minister. I am looking to uplift that basic standard, so that all our firearms officers meet a threshold and that we have faith in the basic training.
Finally, the Policing Minister will be well aware—other hon. Members may not be—that we are running into a number of challenges and differences of opinion in relation to the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill or “Protect the Protectors” Bill, which will be back for its Report and Third Reading on 27 April. From my experiences of shadowing the front line and of the brilliant police parliamentary scheme, which I would recommend to all colleagues, I have felt the increased vulnerability that comes when officers are regularly single-crewed; there are simply fewer of them and risks come with that. Over the course of the campaign and the Bill’s journey through Parliament, it has enjoyed cross-party support, as we all share a sense of outrage at seeing emergency service workers spat at, attacked or assaulted.
I have shared horror stories in this Chamber on several occasions about emergency service workers having been spat at and about the anxiety of having to wait for test results, take antiviral treatments as a precaution and, on occasion, adhere to restrictions about interacting with close family and friends based on advice given by medical professionals. The Bill’s purpose is to alleviate those fears for 999 and NHS workers, wherever and however we can, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has done sterling work leading on the Bill, and I are open to any and all means of getting there. I therefore ask the Policing Minister to continue to engage with us and other MPs to keep that dialogue going between now and 27 April, as we seek to do right by those dedicated emergency service workers, who have high expectations of this Bill, in order to protect them from the vile act of being spat at and the anxiety that follows.
Police Grant Report
Holly Lynch Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I feel very strongly about policing, law and order. We make the laws in this House, and we ask the police to enforce those laws out there. Between us, we make up the before and after of the legislative process. The fabric of a functioning society is based on collectively agreeing the laws that govern our country and then upholding those laws by deciding what happens to those who do not respect them. That is the essence of democracy, and those principles cut right across the different political parties, which is why I find it so difficult to comprehend what this Government are doing to policing and to policing budgets.
West Yorkshire police force has had a 35% reduction in funding since 2010, resulting in almost 2,000 fewer officers and members of staff—a 20% reduction of the force. The force has risen to the challenge set by this Government and has rationalised its estate, modernised to deliver efficiencies and reformed by investing in digital policing. The force has delivered £140 million in savings to get to where we are now. However, I am afraid to say that those deceptive words simply mask the fact that West Yorkshire police are now able to do less with less.
West Yorkshire has the fourth-largest force in the country and, to set the context, it takes in the busy cities of Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford, yet it also covers many Pennine towns extending up to the Lancashire border. We have diverse communities, with black and minority ethnic populations making up more than 50% of 14 of our wards. Although that is a welcome part of our diverse heritage, the House will appreciate that it also presents challenges. International events, terrorist incidents and extremist acts can all undermine community cohesion.
On any one day in West Yorkshire, one police officer is on duty for every 2,097 members of the public. On average, the force makes 136 arrests a day, with a staggering 43 of those arrests related to domestic abuse. The force will attend 38 house burglaries, 44 thefts from vehicles, 16 thefts of vehicles, four serious violent crimes, seven robberies, 57 assaults, 17 sexual offences and 159 incidents of anti-social behaviour, and it will deal with 141 incidents of domestic abuse in total.
We keep being told that crime is falling, that it is changing and that new crimes are emerging, but the lion’s share of criminal activity within this mix is all thefts and violence—there is nothing new in this at all. Yet layered on top of all that are these new and emerging types of crime. Non-recent child sexual exploitation and abuse investigations now account for 33% of all West Yorkshire police investigations—33% of that investigative capacity is taken up by non-recent CSE cases. There were 184 offences relating to modern-day slavery in 2016, which compares with just 19 three years ago. Technology is enabling types of crime such as the grooming of young people for sexual exploitation, human trafficking or radicalisation, and people are most likely to be the victim of fraud than any other crime, with this often being enabled by online activity.
There has been a particularly disturbing increase in firearms discharges in West Yorkshire over the past two years, with firearms predominantly used by organised criminal gangs as a means of resolving disputes. Hon. Members will not need me to remind them that the highest-profile discharge of a firearm in West Yorkshire resulted from the extreme actions of Thomas Mair, who, motivated by right-wing ideology, took the life of our friend and colleague Jo Cox. Sadly, we are no strangers to extremism in West Yorkshire, with several Prevent priority areas presenting a continually evolving threat for the police to assess and manage.
In addition, I want to raise the issue of mission creep within policing, especially in relation to safeguarding and mental health, a point excellently made by the shadow Minister. Some 20% of all incidents reported to West Yorkshire police now relate to safeguarding. More than 20,000 missing people investigations were recorded in 2016, an increase of 258% compared with the 2013 figure. Of those, 2,500 were people who have gone missing on more than one occasion within the past 12 months. The percentage of children reported missing who have gone missing on more than one occasion was 37%. Every day, on average, West Yorkshire police will investigate 65 missing people, with 53 of these cases being graded as “high risk” or “medium risk”, where we are into “drop everything else” territory. The police will also be called to 43 separate incidents associated with mental health.
I have spent time with the out-of-hours mental health team in Halifax and seen the massive challenge that falls to the police outside the normal working hours of other agencies. I was horrified to see that although concerted efforts have been made to keep people detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 out of police cells, there is a crippling lack of alternative and more suitable assessment space. So people in the midst of a mental health crisis are being bounced from pillar to post, until an assessment suite or bed becomes available, often in the back of a police vehicle, but they are predominantly the responsibility of the police for as long as that takes, because of the shortcomings of mental health services to really meet the demand.
On Halloween weekend in Halifax I witnessed four officers tied up with mental health cases for most of the night. That involved two double-crewed units, which probably represented about a quarter of the officers on shift that evening. So I ask the Minister: have we ever really taken a decision about the role of the police in relation to mental health, vulnerability and safeguarding and said that we want to them take on these additional responsibilities? I am not sure that we have, and we have allowed this mission creep to occur.
There will always be a role for the police in these matters, but given that the budget for West Yorkshire police has been cut by 35% since 2010, that the police are not the best agency to take a lead on some of these challenges where there is no criminality, just vulnerability, and that resources are as stretched as they are, we have drastically expanded the responsibilities of the police at the time when our forces can least cope with this. How can we look to empower the right people within social services, care homes, hospitals and the mental health profession, so that they take the lead on addressing these societal problems, rather than have it falling to the police by default, rather than by design, and certainly not motivated by any sense of best practice? Bearing in mind that safeguarding alone accounts for 20% of the workload of West Yorkshire police, the resources that would be released back into neighbourhood policing and back on to the frontline by making this shift could be significant.
I heard the Minister’s opening remarks and the Prime Minister’s comments about funding at Prime Minister’s questions earlier. West Yorkshire’s PCC, Mark Burns-Williamson will be increasing the precept, which is anticipated to generate in the region of £4.5 million. To give that some context, I should say that the 1% pay bonus, which is long overdue for officers but has to be found from existing budgets, will cost about £4 million. To be crystal clear, the pay bonus almost cancels out the precept, leaving a flat cash settlement without inflationary increases, so the settlement pays for less and less year on year and only further cuts within West Yorkshire police will square that circle. That is the reality of the budget before us, which is why we are so concerned about it.
To balance the books, West Yorkshire police will need to find another nearly £13 million over the next four years. This Government have made a lot about reserves, which we have heard again today. Beyond the force’s legal obligation to hold contingency moneys, this year alone the PCC has had to find £11 million from reserves to fund everyday frontline policing. By 2022, most of West Yorkshire’s reserves will have been spent or committed to existing obligations, including capital build programmes and further technology investment. The reserves are being spent year on year just to keep officers on the streets. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) articulated earlier, this money can be spent only once.
Before closing, I want to extend my thanks to Sabina Yasbin of the Met police, as well as to Assistant Chief Constable Angela Williams and Police Sergeant Alex Macleod of West Yorkshire police, who have been co-ordinating my participation in the police parliamentary scheme. It has been brilliant and I recommend it to all colleagues. Every MP will no doubt have a good working relationship with local officers, but having the chance to get a real overview of the local force in detail and to spend time with specialist units that we would not otherwise come into contact with has been an eye-opening and incredibly useful experience, not least because it has helped me to feed into the Protect the Protectors campaign and the related work on the safety of emergency service workers.
With that in mind, I wonder whether the Minister can update the House about when we might see the “Protect the Protectors” Bill return to the Chamber on Report and Third Reading. Its return is eagerly anticipated by colleagues. Can he respond to the inquiries made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the vision of the Bill always having been about having a tough deterrent, so that people reflect on the seriousness of these actions and do not assault emergency services workers in the first place? Although we are incredibly pleased and grateful that the Government have worked with us on extending the six-month sentence for assaulting a police officer to 12 months, we are continually receiving representations from people who are concerned that that will not be the ultimate deterrent that we had hoped for with the Bill. Can the Minister update the House and respond to the letter from my hon. Friend about the Government’s appetite for pushing the sentence to 24 months? I would be grateful if he updated us on that.
Policing
Holly Lynch Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
The hon. Gentleman simply articulates the problem with the Labour party: year after year and decade after decade, the answer is always more and more money with no understanding of where it comes from. There is no such thing as Government money—it is taxpayers’ money. The only way to increase investment in policing, which is what we all want to do, is to either increase borrowing or increase taxation. As he will see, this settlement increases investment from the centre by £130 million. We are enabling locally accountable police and crime commissioners to go to their public and say, “Will you give us an extra £1 a month to invest more in our local policing?” I suspect the answer will be yes.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Further to my hon. Friend’s point, the Minister will be well aware of the really significant variation in the money that can be raised through the precept, which often means that some of the forces with the greatest need are able to raise the least. What is the Minister planning to do to help to reconcile some of those imbalances so that we can meet demand?
Mr Hurd
I welcome the hon. Lady’s contribution. She is extremely thoughtful on police matters and has done great work over the years on the “Protect the protectors” agenda. I hope she welcomes the additional £8.9 million that her force should see next year. She raises a thoughtful point. It is a complex system. There are some forces whose ability to raise precept is low, or whose historical precept levels are low. That often reflects historical political decisions, which I cannot do anything about at the moment. She will notice that this has been structured in terms of an additional £12 rather than percentages, which has been the historical route. There is a reason for that: it advantages slightly those forces that have low precepts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Holly Lynch Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Stephanie Peacock
A quarter of my local police forces’ operational strength has been cut since 2010. When I visited police in Barnsley this weekend, they told me that they were genuinely worried about how they would continue to operate at the same level if further cuts were made. Does the Home Secretary disagree with officers such as those in Barnsley who say that additional cuts will have a severe impact on neighbourhood policing?
Amber Rudd
I can reassure the hon. Lady that there are no plans for further cuts, and that the police budget has been protected between 2015 and 2020. I have particular admiration for South Yorkshire police, who recently launched a new neighbourhood policing model that is moving significant resources in neighbourhood policing across the forces’ four districts. That shows exactly how well they are operating.
Holly Lynch
As the Home Secretary will know, one of the crimes that has increased is the carrying out of attacks on police officers themselves. May I therefore take this opportunity to welcome today’s news that the Government will support the “protect the protectors” Bill, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), on Friday?
That having been said, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary recently warned that
“the position on crime prevention and local policing continues to deteriorate.”
Does the Minister now accept that neighbourhood policing is at the very core of crime prevention, and that it is neighbourhood policing that has had to bear the lion’s share of the loss of 20,000 police officers across the country, much to the detriment of safety in our communities?
Amber Rudd
The hon. Lady has raised two points. On the first, I agree with her. I welcome the close working to protect the protectors, and we will continue to do that. As for the specific point about the hon. Lady’s local police force, it is good to see that West Yorkshire police is graded as “good” across all three strands, and that HM Inspector of Constabulary Mike Cunningham has said:
“I am very pleased with the overall performance of West Yorkshire Police.”
May that continue.