Debates between Jeff Smith and James Gray during the 2019-2024 Parliament

Nightclub Safety

Debate between Jeff Smith and James Gray
Monday 8th November 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Westminster Hall
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Jeff Smith Portrait Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she is also right that we do not really know what is going on. I wonder whether there is a kind of dual phenomenon, whereby we have a very well-known and long-standing problem with drink spiking, which seems even to be increasing, putting vulnerable women, mainly, at risk, but I wonder whether there is something else going on, which is people being stabbed by a sharp implement—a needle-stick injury—for reasons or motivation unknown, and that becoming a copycat thing around the country. It could be that those two phenomena are going on at the same time.

The reason I raise this point—

James Gray Portrait James Gray (in the Chair)
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Order. You must be brief.

Jeff Smith Portrait Jeff Smith
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My hon. Friend is right. Both these things are problems, which is why it is really important that the call from the Night Time Industries Association for an inquiry into this situation, to get to the bottom of it, should be heeded.