Town Centre Safety

Debate between Jamie Stone and Alex Norris

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.