Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and John Hayes

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

What is critical in tackling cybercrime is the partnership between the private and public sectors, which is why the Home Secretary launched a joint taskforce to look at how allies, comrades, friends and others can work together to tackle this issue. It is also important to emphasise that GCHQ states that 80% of such crimes can be prevented by the straightforward good practice that I identified earlier, which is precisely why I take the matter so seriously and why public information is at the heart of what we do.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

For five years, the Government’s alibi has been, “We cut police, but we cut crime.” The Police Minister has told Sky that citizens are more likely to have a crime perpetrated against them online on their computers while they are asleep than in the street. With cybercrime statistics set nearly to double the national crime rate, will the Minister finally admit that, far from the alibi of the past five years being the case, crime is not falling? Crime is changing and the truth is that crime is rising.

[Mr Hayes]

It is always unfortunate when a shadow Minister prepares a question in advance and does not listen to what has been said immediately beforehand. I said in my first answer that crime is changing. It is falling, but it is also changing and because it is changing we need the additional skills, resources and approaches that I described to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin).

Given that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) made a bit of a hash of his question, I want to help him as much as I can: I refer him to the two sets of guidance that we have just published, which I will happily furnish him with following questions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and John Hayes

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The cyber-Minister will know that people are more likely to be mugged online than in the street, with serious consequences for victims. After five years of the Government saying, “We cut police but we have cut crime”, will he confirm that, when 6 million cybercrimes are included in the statistics, the truth will be told that far from falling, crime is changing, and that our country now faces crime doubling just as this Government continue to cut the number of police officers?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman will be disappointed that I am going to say that he is right to draw attention to the scale of this problem. I remind him that we were the Government who made the decision to publish these statistics and to designate cybercrime in the way that we have, because until we appreciate the scale of the problem, we will not develop the solutions necessary to deal with it. As he will know, we are using some of the extra resource to set up the national cyber centre to co-ordinate work in this area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Dromey and John Hayes

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr John Hayes)]

My hon. Friend has been a champion of apprenticeships since he arrived in the House and before. I congratulate him on his initiative in that respect. He will know that this Government have already transferred £150 million into the apprenticeship budget to create 50,000 more apprenticeships. I can announce today that one of them will be joining my office in Whitehall, and I invite other Ministers to do the same.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State clear up the confusion on the future of regional development agencies that has arisen out of conflicting statements? On the one hand, there is an apparent open-mindedness on the part of the Secretary of State; on the other, his counterpart in the Department for Communities and Local Government has taken a more hard-line and ideological approach. If there is a desire in any region, including the west midlands, for the retention of a strong regional structure—albeit with sub-regional arrangements, including local employment partnerships—will the Secretary of State be open to the retention of a strong regional development agency there?