Child Sexual Offender Data

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 730605 relating to collection and publication of child sexual offender data.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain.

[Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jamie Stone]

Goodness me!

[Adam Dance]

Brave young constituents in Yeovil reported historical cases of sexual abuse, but workforce shortages in the police, terrible communication and other failings meant years of stress, delays and the Crown Prosecution Service ruling that it could not advance prosecution despite the evidence threshold being met. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need urgent investment to ensure that the criminal justice system can address historical cases of sexual violence and communicate clearly with victims? No young person should see justice denied.

[Jamie Stone]

My hon. Friend makes his case with some passion. I take note of it, and I thank him.

As Chair of the Petitions Committee, it is always encouraging to see public participation in politics, so I welcome our friends to the Public Gallery. With more than 200,000 signatures, it is quite evident that this petition has engaged a very large number of people across the country. At this point, I remind people that the person leading a debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee sets the scene, as it were, so I will refer to the petitioner and to other points of the argument.

The petition was created by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe). Prior to this debate, he explained to me that he tabled the petition out of concern that existing non-statutory approaches to data collection and transparency regarding child sexual exploitation have been insufficient. He wants to see a clear legal duty imposed on the relevant authorities to consistently record and publish offender data regarding the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of child sexual offenders.

Furthermore, the hon. Member explained to me that he found the Government’s response to the petition insufficient, on the basis that it relies on expectations and directives rather than statutory duties. He believes that this data should not only be collected but be published and standardised to achieve full transparency and accountability.

Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge the profound sensitivity of this subject. Alas, child sexual abuse is far more common than many people may think. Far more children are sexually abused than are ever identified or responded to. At least 500,000—half a million—children in England and Wales are estimated to experience child sexual abuse every year. Crucially, I want to instil in every Member intending to participate in this debate that, behind every statistic, every case file and every policy discussion, there are real people whose lives have been deeply impacted by these offences.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Member refers to real people. There are no people more real than the three girls mentioned in the 2017 BBC docudrama and the whistleblowers involved. Does he accept that within days of that broadcast, which exposed to the nation the horrific actions of a Rochdale grooming gang, Andy Burnham commissioned an independent inquiry that led not just to the exposure of institutional failings but the vindication of those whistleblowers and, subsequently, the arrest and conviction of seven sick paedophiles in Rochdale, who were jailed for a total of more than 170 years? Does that not prove that we need to have real, strong political leadership on this issue, but also cross-party consensus, and that we should not be making party political points out of this? We should be working together to defeat paedophilia.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I point out to Members that this is an incredibly important debate, which is why so many of you are here today. I would ask you to be brief in your interventions, out of respect for all other Members who have something to say.

[Jamie Stone]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain. The hon. Member underlined the point I am trying to make. Of the people watching this debate, many will alas be survivors of child sexual abuse who did not report that abuse until adulthood. That is the terrible thing. Their safety, dignity and wellbeing must remain at the centre of the debate and all that we say today.

I also want to recognise that there will be people watching this debate who have felt failed by institutions and public authorities in the past. That is precisely why we should use any parliamentary time on this topic—specifically with regard to information sharing—as a way of better equipping safeguarding agencies, local authorities, our criminal justice system and Parliament to improve the protection of children.

Unfortunately, no institution can undo past failures, but we have a responsibility to learn from them and to strengthen the systems we rely upon to improve the identification of abuse, our response to it and the experience of survivors.

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

Research has repeatedly shown that about half of child sexual abuse in the UK happens within the family, and the majority of the rest is by known, trusted adults. When I was chief executive of a rape crisis service, I worked very closely with an organisation called Child Abuse Prevention UK, which taught children to recognise the signs of abuse and how to report it to a trusted adult, such as a teacher. Unfortunately, it folded due to lack of funding, because the support for prevention and education in this area is absolutely non-existent—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the Member please sit down? Please do not make me have to intervene a third time.

[Jamie Stone]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain. I will come to my hon. Friend’s point very shortly.

This petition provokes legitimate questions that the public want answered, regarding how data on these offences is collected and how patterns of offending are identified. When discussing this practice, it is important that we balance transparency with privacy, proportionality and the risk that data may be misused or presented in a misleading way. For that reason, our discussion today must approach the petition with reasoned, constructive and evidence-based recommendations. We should all be guided by what best protects children, supports survivors and strengthens public trust in safeguarding institutions when dealing with offenders.

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a very clear and reasoned argument. Does he agree that everyone here cares deeply about this horrific crime, and that we should be thinking about how we can approach this together rather than attacking people over their party political positions?

[Jamie Stone]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Today, we have with us people in the Public Gallery who have been through this dreadful experience. Sadly, it leaves scars that can last a lifetime. By referring to “offenders”, this petition is focused on a person who has admitted guilt to a child sexual abuse offence or who has been found guilty of such an offence in a court of law.

Prior to this debate, I spoke to people at the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, who pointed out that although there is understandable interest in strengthening the collection and scrutiny of data relating to offenders, such an approach taken in isolation will have but limited impact on the scale of harm they are seeking to confront in order to protect children. Data on known offenders is, by its very nature, retrospective—it looks back. It tells us where the system has already failed, but it does not help us to identify where abuse is occurring right now, unseen. In this way, it is crucial to consider that better safeguarding outcomes should, first and foremost, be driven by the identification and prevention of abuse in the first instance.

Alas, the reality is that a significant proportion of child sexual abuse never reaches the criminal justice system at all. These children are not reflected in datasets or analytical frameworks based solely on convicted offenders. It is therefore worth remembering that, although offender data has its place within a broader safeguarding landscape, it is not adequate as the central focus for protecting victims and preventing further abuse. Failure to consider that risks neglecting the hidden majority of cases and misdirecting our resources and attention.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

As a fellow Scottish MP, the hon. Member will know that, sadly, these gangs operate across all parts of the United Kingdom. Does he accept that we need consistency in the collection of data in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

Indeed. The hon. Member has some knowledge, as I do, of the situation north of the border. The point is well made—I shall come to it shortly—that this crime is no respecter of where in the United Kingdom someone lives. Only by prioritising the identification of unreported abuse can we begin to address the true scale of the problem, rather than merely documenting its aftermath, retrospectively.

The petition makes particular reference to “gang based crime”. Many hon. Members will be aware of previous inquiries into this particular offence and its severity, which should not be undermined. However, we must remember that children can be sexually abused in many different ways by different people and in different places and situations. I think that is precisely the point to which my Scottish colleague, the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), alluded.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for the reasoned caveats that he lays out, but in the case of Rotherham, the gangs that were grooming and abusing young children in my constituency were predominantly of Pakistani heritage. That mattered because, had we recognised it early on, we might have been able to disrupt and prevent some of the abuse. In specific cases, we need this data and we need to be transparent. Sometimes all the caveats in the world just dilute what should be a laser focus on protecting children.

[Jamie Stone]

Wise words indeed.

To turn to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) touched on earlier, in England and Wales alone almost half of all child sexual abuse offences reported to the police in 2021 and 2022 took place in the family environment. That means the abuse was by parents, siblings, grandparents or anyone considered one of the family. After sexual abuse by a parent, harmful sexual behaviour by siblings is the second most common form of sexual abuse within the family environment that is reported to police.

My point is that we must be cautious about framing child sexual abuse as primarily an external or culturally othered threat, when the evidence shows that it is most often perpetrated within existing relationships of trust and care. I suggest that overemphasising outside narratives risks distorting public understanding and could distract from the full range of contexts in which abuse occurs.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

Although I accept the hon. Gentleman’s wider point, given that we are about to have a national grooming gang inquiry that Opposition Members had to drag the Government, kicking and screaming, to do, would it not be helpful for that inquiry to have the data? Surely sunlight is the best disinfectant on this issue?

[Jamie Stone]

Of course, the Minister will sum up. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s view on this.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I want to make a small point following the strong and powerful point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) about the gang-related stuff. The petition that the public signed does not selectively go for gangs only. It refers to all offenders, including gangs. Surely the key is to get the knowledge. That sunlight will help us to solve those other crimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

I believe that we must distinguish carefully between evidence-based policy and generalisation, between transparency and sensationalism, and between the legitimate scrutiny of institutional failings and the prejudiced stigmatisation of whole groups of people. In short, we have to treat this subject with great care.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

Before becoming an MP, I was a prosecutor for 21 years. I prosecuted many perpetrators of violence against women and girls, including sexual offenders. I am aware that the CPS has inputted data on all manner of aspects of offenders, including ethnicity.

Data can be useful in identifying patterns of offending, including pockets of offending in particular areas. Does the hon. Member agree that data can be useful, but that each individual case needs to be considered and prosecuted on the basis of evidence rather than anything else, and that it is important that we prosecute as many offenders as the evidence will allow across the country, notwithstanding their ethnicity, religion or nationality? Anybody committing acts of violence against women and girls, including grooming gangs, should be prosecuted, where the evidence allows.

[Jamie Stone]

Children cannot look after themselves in this regard, so it behoves every single adult to sort this out. How do we do that? By having a conversation, by discussing the issue and by operating on an absolutely cross-party basis. In that way, we can improve responses, and prevent further abuse and exploitation.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Jamie Stone]

I have accepted a rather large number of interventions, and I know that a lot of Members want to speak in this debate. I will therefore close by making this last point. In my view, it would be a great tragedy if this issue became a party political football. It should not because, as was said earlier, sexual abuse is no observer of rank in society or geographical location. It can affect everyone, from those in the remotest parts of the UK to those in the most suburbanised places.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

The hour grows late. The people in the Public Gallery, who I must not mention, have sat patiently and listened. We know how many people signed the petition. That is an indication of how important it is out there. We have hon. Members from all over the UK in this debate—from Wales, my colleagues from Scotland, from all parts of England, and from Northern Ireland—because this issue matters in the body politic. We should all remind ourselves that petition debates have some of the highest viewing figures of anything that happens in this place—they are up there with Prime Minister’s questions—so an awful lot of people out there will be watching this debate. The key is that we have had a full and proper discussion: we have aired the issue, but it all depends on what happens next. I rest my case with that.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 730605 relating to collection and publication of child sexual offender data.

Firearms Licensing

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Goldsborough]

I thank the hon. Gentleman; I think he has read a bit of my speech.

Technological change is introducing new risks. The conversion of blank-firing weapons and imitation firearms, and emerging technologies such as 3D printing, are changing the landscape of firearms crime. Such developments do not respect the boundaries of legislation written decades ago. We face a dual responsibility: we must protect public safety, and we must do so in a way that is fair, proportionate and grounded in evidence.

The petition before us, signed by more than 121,000 people, reflects genuine concern. Many petitioners fear that merging section 1 and section 2 licensing would increase bureaucracy, create delays and impose additional costs without delivering meaningful safety benefits. Those concerns are not just abstract; they reflect real frustrations with an already stretched licensing system. Many applicants experience long waits and many police forces face a capacity challenge. Will the Minister ensure that any proposed changes are accompanied by robust economic modelling, including of the potential impact on rural businesses, on employment and on participation?

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

As Chair of the Petitions Committee, I can say that the hon. Gentleman is doing a damn good job of opening the debate. The Father of the House referred to farmers needing shotguns to control vermin. The crofters in my constituency have huge trouble with hooded crows, who come to peck out the eyes of lambs—no wonder they need their guns. I wish that Members from the Scottish National party were here today, because policing in the north of Scotland is a shadow of what it was, and the proposals would put an additional strain on those cops. They have not got the time to do all this.

[Ben Goldsborough]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

I think it is only fair that I offer an abject apology to the hon. Member, and a large refreshment will be his later today.

[Dave Doogan]

It is only fair that I accept both of those from the hon. Member. We are here because of the 121,000 signatures on the petition, and many of the constituencies with the highest counts of signatures are in Scotland, where gun ownership per capita is much higher than it is elsewhere in these isles, for entirely predictable and understandable reasons.

Angus and Perthshire Glens has the highest response rate in the United Kingdom; 550 opponents of the Government’s proposal have come forward from my constituency. They have good reason, because whether someone is up Glen Prosen, Glen Isla, Glen Clova, Glen Esk, or Glen Lethnot, or in Strathtay, Strathtummel or Strathmore, their possession, operation, use and discharge of their shotgun is just a part of everyday life. It is an essential tool for the maintenance of a rural way of living. As other right hon. and hon. Members have attested, concern is growing that perhaps this Government are not fully conversant—or nearly conversant enough—with what goes on in rural communities.

In terms of the evidence On public safety, I do not think that anybody in the Chamber is minded or motivated to get in the way of something that would improve firearms or shotgun control to protect the public. No one would object to that. What people in this Chamber, and many people outside it, object to is a vast increase in the bureaucratic burden that will deliver no significant increase in public safety.

As other Members have pointed out, during this debate we should remember those who have suffered at the hands of delinquent use of shotguns and firearms. That is vital, but so too is ensuring that any measures to modify the regulation around public safety are effective. Where it is seen to not be effective—and it is clearly demonstrated that these measures will not be effective—we should be very sceptical indeed.

I will not cover again the points that others have made on the well-documented difference in effect and lethality between firearms and shotguns. That substantial difference in lethality is why, dating back to 1920, they have been categorised differently. That difference has not changed; it is the same difference in 2026. If we look to tragedies such as that which happened in Plymouth, the problem that facilitated that tragedy was one not of regulatory impropriety, but of application of the regulation. If the regulation had been applied effectively in that instance, there is a good probability that that tragedy would never have happened.

Around 25% of firearms applications already take more than a year to process and 30 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales have missed the four-month processing target already. Licensing fees have risen by 133% and applying section 1 checks to all shotguns risks overwhelming an already underperforming system, which will present clear demonstrable challenges to our rural communities. Police Scotland operate a single national licensing unit, which consistently outperforms forces in England and Wales—I say that not as a cheap political point but because, quite clearly, if we centralise, standardise and properly resource the licensing regime, we will see substantial improvements in turnaround times.

As well as that, we need far more robust public protections. Do not let me forget to mention that, despite the work that Police Scotland’s licensing unit does, many of my constituents and others in Scotland still have to run the gauntlet with the general practice regime, which is by no means straightforward; that is certainly also something that should be looked at.

Strengthening firearms licensing units throughout the United Kingdom would be positive; standardisation of it would be positive; electronic record keeping would be positive, and so would closing the gaps in private shotgun sales by requiring sellers to verify buyer certificates directly with issuing police via a secure online portal. Those are all reasonable and practical changes that can be presumed to have a positive effect on the regime, in contrast to what the Government are proposing with their merger of the two sections.

Today’s debate is well attended and people are speaking passionately about the strength of feeling that they from their constituents all up and down these islands—mine included—that there is enough burden on ordinary people in rural communities trying to maintain the countryside in the way that we all expect them to. They are trying to make their farm businesses work properly and deal with the effects of challenges ranging from the family farm tax to employer national insurance contributions, and from the business property relief to the tax on crew cab pickups. Many people across rural Britain are thinking, “What next from central Government?”.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Milne]

I think a trip to Northern Ireland is on offer to the Minister, and I am sure that she would have an excellent host in the hon. Gentleman.

[Jamie Stone]

I mentioned killing hooded crows in an earlier intervention, and I think one way that we could boost the industry that the hon. Member is talking about is by eating more game. I am not for one instant advocating eating hooded crows, or cormorants, which I am told they eat in Iceland—although I do not fancy one myself. But game is terribly good food, and children love it once they get a taste for it. I do not know why we do not offer pheasants on school menus. It would save the Exchequer a lot of money to eat the game that we shoot.

[John Milne]

I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. I am a big game meat fan, so I am certainly ready for that.

Moving to a centralised, fully digitised licensing body akin to the DVLA or the DBS, with real-time verification at the point of sale, would directly address weaknesses, improve consistency, reduce fraud and allow police forces to focus on law enforcement rather than administrative licensing functions. If we are serious about safety, that is where our attention should go. The wrong kind of reform could damage viable farm businesses and undermine food production for no clear benefit.

I urge the Government to listen carefully to rural communities, licensing professionals and the evidence. Let us modernise licensing and strengthen the medical safeguards. As a result, we will improve public safety while supporting this valuable industry and community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and particularly to the deer management course that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) also attended last December, which was hosted by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. For transparency, I should also say that I am a member of the Countryside Alliance and of BASC, and both those memberships predate my election to this place. I myself shoot, and I am a shotgun certificate holder.

However, I have come to this debate to talk not about my own passion for shooting—even though I am my own MP—but about the importance that shooting has for my constituency. Some 477 constituents signed the petition, and I have had many emails from fellow shooters in the constituency, as well as from those considering taking up shooting, having their first go at a clay ground and applying for a shotgun certificate. Indeed, I cannot exemplify the importance of shooting to my constituency better than my constituent Stuart, who said that you only need to spot the game feeders in the fields from any train passing through Buckinghamshire to see how important shooting sports are in the constituency.

Of course, it is not just shooting sports that would be affected by the changes in the petition. As others have said eloquently throughout the debate, yes, it is about shooting sports; yes, it is about the clay grounds; yes, it is about game shooting; but it is also about farmers, pest control and predator control. It is about things like deer management, and if we did not have deer management and people willing to get a firearms licence to stop our countryside being overrun—people who often get called out by the police themselves to deal with a deer that might have been knocked over in the road and need humanely dispatching—we would be in great difficulty.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) concluded by saying that the wider economic impact is not just on those who hold a shotgun certificate or a firearms licence; it is also on people such as David and Nicky Florent in my constituency, who run—despite its name, it is in Buckinghamshire—the Oxford Gun Company in the village of Oakley, which is a gun shop and shooting ground. They do sell not just shotguns, rifles, cartridges and ammunition, but the clothing ranges, boots, glasses, ear defenders and everything else that goes into shooting at large. That would be at risk if the change that is being consulted on by the Government, and that this petition is about, goes ahead.

As others have said, this change could lead to a huge number of people saying, “It’s just not worth it any more.” They would not put themselves through the process of renewing a shotgun certificate or even getting one in the first place. After the last significant reform of the licensing regime—back in 1988—there was a decline of about a third in the number of participants in shooting. Estimates out there suggest that this change from section 2 to section 1 would lead to a similar reduction in the number of people wishing to put themselves through the process of renewing their firearms licence.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the benefits. At the moment, the United Kingdom has a stable system; he mentioned people thinking about taking up shooting, and we have a system whereby people are taught correctly, from the word go, to point their gun at the sky or at the ground and, when they finish shooting, to clean it, put it away and lock it up. Those are invaluable rules, and we should be very proud of how well we run things in the United Kingdom. I only have to go back to 2006, when Dick Cheney unfortunately managed to pepper somebody at a quail shoot in the United States. The safety standards we have in this country are the envy of the world.

[Greg Smith]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman; he puts it very well. Someone said earlier that holding a shotgun or a rifle is a privilege. Yes, it is a massive privilege, but it also comes with an absolutely ginormous responsibility, and I believe that everybody who legally holds a shotgun certificate or firearms licence takes that responsibility very seriously. They have often been taught from a young age the proper safety protocols around handling a firearm, and the importance of keeping it locked away and of cleaning it, which is important for one’s own safety when handling a firearm—if it is not clean, that can lead to significant problems. We should acknowledge just how seriously legitimate, legal, properly licensed shotgun and rifle owners in this country take their responsibilities. We all want a safe system; for those of us who have the privilege of owning a shotgun or a rifle—I do not have a firearms licence, and I have never applied for one—it is imperative that there is a safe system underpinning that, because it protects those who own them as well as those who do not.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) went through the statistics in considerable detail, so I will not repeat them. It is worth acknowledging that our hearts go out to anyone who is affected by or a victim of a tragedy at the hands of someone wielding a firearm illegitimately—whether they somehow cheated the system and got a certificate or not. However, fatalities involving legally held firearms are extraordinarily rare: around one in 15 million annually, as other Members have said. The significance of that, which I do not think anyone else has mentioned in the debate, is that that falls far below the Health and Safety Executive’s intervention threshold of one in a million. That is not to say that there cannot be proportionate, evidence-based reforms to the licensing system. In many respects, there probably should be, to tweak it and make it safer. But what I do not see—I do not think anybody in the debate has advocated this—is that merging section 2 into section 1 will solve any problems or make anybody in our great country safer. It would, however, bring considerable cost and bureaucracy. I am lucky, with Thames Valley, to have one of the better-performing police force firearms licensing departments in the country. But as others have said, some forces have been found considerably wanting when it comes to new grants and renewal lead times.

On the other side of the coin is the enormous financial cost to our economy: shooting is worth £3.3 billion each year in its own right and generates £9.3 billion of wider benefits. My constituent Scott believes that merging sections 1 and 2 could cost £1 billion a year and 20,000 jobs, and evidence from the Countryside Alliance looking specifically at alignment between sections 2 and 1 shows that it would reduce the total value by £2.38 billion in the first year, with a loss of between 13,600 and 17,400 full-time jobs.

This debate is looking at a live consultation. I urge the Minister to stop and reflect on what she has heard this afternoon and what the shooting community in my—and I dare say in everybody’s—constituency is saying on this matter. As she goes through the process of reforming police forces, per se, she should perhaps pause any conversation on the changes until we know what those police forces will actually look like. I have heard arguments on the other side of the debate about a national firearms licensing scheme, and particularly that the existing system has local officers who, although they cannot know every certificate holder or licence holder in their constituency, are closer to the people they are licensing. The Minister should look at the bigger picture—where we have significant change to the policing landscape—and pause, look at the evidence, and understand the potential for significant damage to both safety and the economic survival of this sport and of wider conservation activity.

Finally, a lot has been said about this being an urban versus rural matter, but I do not believe that it is. My constituency is entirely rural. Yes, there are many shotgun certificate holders and firearms licence holders in my constituency, and there are clay grounds, many shoots and lots of farms. But if we look at the number of certificates issued across the country, this is just as important to many people who live in our cities. Every year, 21,000 certificates are issued by the Metropolitan police to London residents. This matters to people who shoot, no matter where they live. They might go to a game shoot or a clay ground in the countryside but live in our cities. This is far bigger than just a rural issue.

Indefinite Leave to Remain

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Through you, Sir Edward, may I address the Minister? Just read the room. The only other times it has been as packed as this when I have been here in recent times have been for debates on the two-child limit and on welfare benefits. I do not want to see our Government make another embarrassing U-turn like that.

The reason we are here is that every one of us has a case that, if the proposed change goes through, will be absolutely tragic. Families have settled, sold their accommodation and everything in their home, worked hard and delivered everything asked of them, and we are going to deny them and their children the right to the future that they hope for. If this goes ahead, every one of us will report social care collapsing in our constituencies.

I remind people that it was many of these workers, with their experience, who delivered us through covid. Some of them sacrificed their lives. This is just unjust, and the Minister needs to recognise that, take the message back to those who are developing our strategy as a Government and say, “This isn’t the route to go down.”

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[John McDonnell]

I would rather not, because other people need to come in.

Let me just make a point about parliamentary process. If this is to be done not through primary legislation that we can debate and amend, but via a statutory instrument, it needs to be done under the double affirmative process, so that we can have a debate and the opportunity for amendments. Otherwise, I think the Government are going to run into opposition of a scale that they have seen on other issues, frighten people and undermine our support, completely unnecessarily. If there are issues around immigration that we have to deal with—if people can remember, we did it with the bogus colleges—we should do it through proper legal process and prosecution. If there are abuses in the system, let us address the abuses, but do not harm people in this way as a result.

Rural Depopulation

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my neighbour from across the Minch, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), on bringing this important subject to the attention of this place.

I am old enough to remember a time, when I was at school in Tain, when my father said to me, “Your future will lie in the south. Go south, young boy, because that’s where the jobs are.” Then, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) so wisely said, the oil came—and come it did. In my case, that meant working in the Nigg yard, as so many others did—at its height, there were 5,000 people employed there.

I married and brought up my children in my home town of Tain. I was one of the lucky ones. Indeed, it could be said that, in Caithness, the advent of Dounreay was equally important in not just halting but reversing depopulation. Even today, Dounreay keeps the lights on in Strath Halladale and Bettyhill, because many people have a croft, but they also have an income from Dounreay. To be plain with colleagues, I come to this from the issue of high-quality employment above all else. As my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) just said, that is crucial, because without jobs, depopulation will continue.

I congratulate all speakers; all the important points have been touched on. My neighbour across the Minch made an important point. He said that there is a perception that the highlands and islands, and indeed many other parts of the UK, are full up. That is absolutely not the case. One only needs to travel on what we call the Causeymire—or the Causewaymire—across Caithness from Latheron to Thurso to see the myriad empty ruined croft houses either side of the road. Those once upon a time supported families but that is not the case now. It will be exactly the same across the Minch.

My neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire mentioned schools. Just north of his constituency, we have a problem with recruiting and retaining staff for some of our primary and secondary schools. That is becoming a big issue. Such problems are a disincentive for people to come or employers to move to the highlands and offer employment.

I am very taken by what my Welsh friend, the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake), said about Western Australia. If incentives can be put together that will encourage qualified staff—dentists, doctors, teachers —to come to these areas, that would help so much. As my hon. Friend from across the Minch mentioned, there is a carers’ crisis. We see that in west Sutherland. We have an ever dropping number of carers, so who will look after the old people? People are giving up. The Government could tweak the rules governing the taxation of mileage that carers are burdened with. It is a very big disincentive indeed.

The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) talked about the loss of the migrant workers, as did the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris). The fact that we do not have those people—they have gone—makes a huge difference. I can remember Polish people in Easter Ross asking me, “Do they hate us? Why do they want us to leave?” That was very sad. Also, when I travel in Wester Ross and west Sutherland I see the old European signs with the stars on them saying, “This stretch of road was paid for with the help of EC money.” That was a huge loss to us all. Whatever we might think of the EC, the structural funding or something like objective 1, which was designed to reach the most disadvantaged areas including those that face depopulation, was a great loss to us all. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will look at the issues.

Time is short. There is a massive problem that matters hugely to my constituents. I could talk about health, which has been mentioned already in this debate. The fact that Caithness mothers have to travel more than a 200-mile return trip to give birth in Inverness is a piece of nonsense. That is one of the reasons that people are leaving Caithness and heading south. It is as simple as that.

Good Government treats the different parts of the UK fairly, whether they are remote, depopulated, or what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has left us now, referred to as the concrete of London. The point is that a good and fair Government will give people an equal chance in life to prosper and do well. It is not all doom and gloom, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) said. There are hopes for the future. We could look at other models of recruitment, imaginative ways of providing housing and incentives to get employers to come to remote areas. I very much hope that this will be the start of a constructive dialogue with the Government, and between the Scottish and UK Governments, on how we can, as has been said, grip the issue, shake it out and sort it once and for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Lib Dem spokesperson.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

As the Minister has said, the physical presence of police officers—coppers on the beat—is crucial to tackling antisocial behaviour, but during recent years we have seen the number of police officers in the highlands of Scotland decline hugely. That is extremely worrying and does nothing for public confidence in the police force. I know that policing is devolved to the Scottish Government, but may I with some passion ask the Minister: what advice does she have for me as a Scottish Member?

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not need advice from me. He is quite clear that this is a devolved matter, so he obviously needs to take it up with the Scottish Government and Police Scotland. As an incoming Government we recognise that having enough police on the beat and being visible is important to the public feeling safe. That reassurance is vital, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman will take it up with the Scottish Government and Police Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

There is a crofter living in the Rhiconich-Kinlochbervie area of my constituency. He is very hard-working, he is well-liked locally and he has done a great deal for the local community, but he is German and he is trying ever so hard to get leave to remain, but it is taking forever. I would be very grateful if the Minister asked her officials to meet me to see how we can speed this matter on.

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Dame Angela Eagle)]

I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.

Town Centre Safety

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. The causality is there: the lack of availability of neighbourhood policing has created an environment in which people feel that they can steal without consequence. On citizen’s arrest, I share my hon. Friend’s view that it is not something that we should be asking people to do. I know that the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire is enthusiastic about it, but is it practical? Take the Co-op, a retailer that is making huge strides to protect its staff. In general, it does not ask its staff to detain shoplifters, but some of its covert teams do. In incidents where they detain someone who has committed or is alleged to have committed a crime, four times in every five, having taken them to the back, they have to let them go again because there is no one to make the arrest. The idea that we can citizen’s-arrest our way out of this is for the birds.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pity that the Scottish National party Members are not here, because normally they would waste no opportunity to stand up and say how well they do things in Scotland, and how much better they do them than the rest of the UK. We have six police officers for the whole county of Sutherland, which is 2,028 square miles. I can tell hon. Members that in the biggest conurbations in my constituency, such as Alness, Wick and Thurso, we do not see cops on the beat and old people feel very vulnerable indeed. I know that it is a devolved matter, but I will not waste this opportunity to point out that things are far from right in Scotland, and I wish that the Scottish Government would catch a grip.

[Alex Norris]

Policing is a reserved matter, as the hon. Gentleman says, but the experience of communities like his is reflected across all our four nations. That is why I said to his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), that we ought to have that staffing kit as well as the equipment in order to try to protect the public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

The behaviour of nuisance riders, or boy racers—whatever we want to call them—is antisocial behaviour plain and simple. It is criminal, it can be harassing, it can bring fear to communities, and it can cause criminal damage. The police, working with local authorities, have the necessary powers to end these problems, and forces around the country have organised pilots that have led to success. I encourage the hon. Lady’s local police force to look at the good practice that is currently taking place around the country.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Let us get this exactly right: over the next four years, police numbers in Scotland are due to fall by 2,000. The highlands and islands police chief has said that “something has to give.” I had thought that Barnett consequentials would lead to an increase in Scotland’s police numbers rather than a decrease. When it comes to antisocial behaviour, what a grim message this is for some of the most vulnerable in society.

[Suella Braverman]

Unfortunately—it is incredibly tragic—the Scottish National party’s obsession with separatism has led to the highest number of alcohol and drug-related deaths in Europe on their watch. Falling police numbers in Scotland when numbers are rising in England and Wales—that is what the SNP brings us, and only good government from the Conservatives can stop crime and protect victims.

Points of Order

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. Mr Speaker has said repeatedly that it is important that Committees are able to take evidence from the witnesses whom they believe to be essential to their inquiries. Ministers will have heard the point of order from the right hon. Lady, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, and the Whip appears to be making a note of it right now. I am sure that Mr Speaker would encourage Ministers to reconsider their position on this issue.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In recent days a Russian vessel, the Admiral Vladimirsky, has been cruising off the coast of my constituency. It is not a trawler; it is not a pleasure boat; it is a spy ship, complete with armed guards. It has been snooping around the Beatrice oil field and examining the interconnector to my constituency, and it has been snooping around the oil installations and pipelines in the North sea. We all know what happened in recent times in the Baltic with the gas pipeline. I do not take kindly to this happening. I regard it as an important security issue that affects the United Kingdom and our energy security. What advice can you give me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on getting the Secretary of State for Defence to come to this place and make a statement, in view of this urgent situation?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of this House, and I am sure he knows that there are routes by which he can request that a statement be made. I have to tell him that at this point we have had no notice of a statement, but his comments will have been heard and I am sure they will be fed back to the Secretary of State.

Fishing Industry: Visas for Foreign Workers

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miss Dines]

It is unfortunate when the nationalists try to bring everything down to Brexit or independence. This is a whole of the United Kingdom system. We have a skilled worker programme, and fishermen will need to apply. There will be generous support. Despite the six-month delay, we need to give further assistance to the industry, and we will announce a generous package imminently.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) has put his finger on it. Today I have spoken to Mr William Calder, who runs Scrabster Seafoods, a highly successful firm in Caithness. William said to me that if the skippers cannot get the crew for the boats, the boats do not go to sea, and if the boats do not go to sea, they do not catch the fish. That means he may not have the fish he needs. He employs people in vital jobs in Caithness. The Government have to ask themselves one simple question: are they about business and nurturing business, or not?

[Miss Dines]

Of course the Government are about nurturing business, but this is about assisting industries that have been using the wrong visa for many years to come into line with the rest of the country. The fishermen should be employed through the skilled worker visa. This Government are about economics and industry, and this is about encouraging the sector with generous support to recruit local people where possible, rather than people from abroad who may not have the language skills needed to promote their safety. That is why the English language is so very important in the visa system.

Hillsborough Families Report: National Police Response

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

As I have said, the Home Secretary spoke about the issue when she was asked about it in this House yesterday. The private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) is due for consideration on Friday; I have already committed to communicating with my Ministry of Justice colleagues on the topic, and I will do so.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Any indication of obfuscation is dangerous for the Government. We must have a Hillsborough law. We must have a report in full, as soon as possible. A functioning democracy depends on public trust in the police forces; without that trust, democracy itself is undermined. I would like to hear a word of recognition from the Minister that this is a dangerous situation that we have to put right. We have to make sure that the general public—our voters, the people of the United Kingdom—have proper faith in their police forces. Right now, that faith has been damaged by all that we have seen.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. Policing takes place by consent, and it is important that the public have confidence in the police force. That is why the apology yesterday from the police and the acknowledgment of the terrible, terrible mistakes and wrongdoing—not just all those years ago, but in the years that followed—was right. That is important. The police have committed to change their own code of ethics to build trust in policing, which reflects the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Action is also being taken on the vetting issues that we have debated in this House over the past two or three months. We are looking to review the way in which dismissals from the police happen, so we can allow chief constables more readily to remove officers who are guilty of misconduct or of poor performance more generally. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point; action is under way.

Let me end my answer by saying that, despite the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised and other points that we have debated in this House over the past few months, the vast majority of police officers are dedicated, hard-working, decent people who put themselves in danger for our safety. But where there are terrible failings, as there have been in this case and others that we have debated recently, it is critical that robust action is taken, because without public confidence we cannot have an effective police force.