Violent Crime

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I have the advantage of my right hon. Friend the Policing Minister next to me, who informs me that the Met has already received emergency grants in that regard. I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the details of those emergency grants.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The west midlands is just as important as London, and over the last 10 years we have lost about 3,000 policemen. Logically, we cannot expect the same level of service; crime will go up. Over the last weeks in Coventry specifically, there have been stabbings—one fatal and one very serious. The police in Coventry are firefighting, and I have raised this issue many times. It is no good the Minister going through a list of all sorts of initiatives. The Government have to reassure the people out there because that is their duty, and the only way they are going to reassure people is with adequate policing. It is fundamental for the Government to protect their people, but they are not doing that at the moment.

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to learn that his chief constable is one of the chief constables the Home Secretary meets regularly to discuss their approach to serious violence. West Midlands police is also one of the forces receiving extra money for surge policing through the £100 million spring statement money. I am pleased that the chief constable is setting up his own violence reduction unit; when I say “his own”, I mean that he is leading that work in the west midlands. We expect to see the results of that unit soon.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and I hope that she will show me where I am wrong, but I always understood that delivery companies, particularly those delivering post and packages, have an X-ray procedure to see what the contents are.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not sure whether I am in a position to answer that. Of course, every company will have its own security arrangements. The hon. Gentleman will know that what we have inserted through this Bill are further conditions on sellers to ensure that their packages, if they contain bladed products, are labelled very clearly so that anyone handling that package understands what is inside it. We appreciate that perhaps not everyone has access to those facilities.

Knife Crime Prevention Orders

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend who, with his expertise from the Select Committee on Education, hits the nail on the head when it comes to the role that exclusions and alternative provision seem to play in the lives of so many young people who are either the victims or perpetrators of serious violence. I am already working very closely with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), particularly through the serious violence taskforce. I look forward to Edward Timpson’s review of good examples of alternative provision, because we need to ensure that children who struggle in mainstream education do not become targets for these criminal gangs that seek to exploit them as they attend alternative provision. We are very much working on that, and I would be delighted to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss our work further.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the birthday present of calling me to speak this afternoon. I very much appreciate it.

A famous boxer once said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.” The fact of the matter is that there is a shortage of policemen, and the level in the west midlands is only 75% of what it should be. I have met different groups in Coventry, some from affluent areas and some from not very well-off areas, and the common denominator is the lack of police and the increases in burglaries, knife crime and drugs. Over the weekend, the police used a dispersal order in the centre of Coventry after a young man was badly stabbed. There have been a number of stabbings in Coventry. Let us have the police; let us do something about it; and let us stop shadow boxing.

[Victoria Atkins]

I understand and hear the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about police funding. I hope that he will encourage his police and crime commissioner to spend some of the £85 million he has accrued in reserves as of March 2018 and that he will support the Government’s funding settlement tomorrow. West Midlands police stand to receive an extra £34 million through the settlement with the help of the police and crime commissioner, and presumably the commissioner will be able to use that money to good effect.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

This group of new clauses and amendments deals with matters on which I know there is a great deal of agreement across the House. I will speak to Government new clauses 16 and 17 and Government amendment 25, and in response to new clauses 7, 10 to 13, 22 and 15 and amendment 11, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

Let me start by saying how grateful I am to my hon. Friend for his new clauses and amendment. I know that he has raised this issue in the past, and, of course, he spoke very eloquently about it during our Second Reading debate on 27 June. There are offences available for the prosecution of a person who threatens someone with an offensive weapon in private, but those offences do not describe the criminality sufficiently, and do not attract the same penalties as those that are possible when the offence is committed in public. I have therefore been convinced by my hon. Friend that there is a gap in the law that should be filled.

Under new clause 16, it would be an offence for a person unlawfully and intentionally to threaten another person with a corrosive substance, a bladed or pointed article, or an offensive weapon in a way that poses an immediate risk of serious physical harm to that person. The offence will apply in any private place, which means anywhere other than a public place or school, or further education premises, where it is already an offence. In respect of a corrosive substance, a private place means anywhere other than a public place. The lawyers have been terribly exercised about that.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

As the Minister probably knows, there was a nasty incident in Coventry a couple of days ago when a young man lost his life as a result of people carrying knives. How does she propose to strengthen the Bill? We have been here before—we have had amnesties and all sorts—but we never seem any nearer to tackling the problem. Has the Minister any proposals in that regard?

[Victoria Atkins]

Let me say first that I am terribly sorry to hear of the incident in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but I cannot comment on the specifics. The Bill is but one part of the Government’s serious violence strategy, which has been a rolling programme of action since April. The purpose of these measures, particularly in relation to knives, is to address the concern expressed to us by charities, the police and others about the ability of young people to get hold of knives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

A huge amount of work is going on, and as the hon. Lady rightly says, the focus this year has been on gender inequality, but we are extending it to ethnic diversity and so on. Interestingly, we have just announced that we are consulting on whether businesses should publicise their parental leave policies to help women and carers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

11. What steps are the Government taking to mitigate the effects of the rising retirement age for the millions of women who will have accrued less in their pension pot due to the gender pay gap? [Interruption.]

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me if I have had not heard the hon. Gentleman correctly because of the hubbub in the Chamber; it is wonderful that everybody is so excited about women and equalities today.

The gender pay gap for women between the ages of 40 and 49 has fallen since 2010, but we published the “Fuller Working Lives” strategy last year and continue to work with businesses to ensure that everyone can adapt to the changing face of the workplace.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

We are conscious of the difficulties of scale in small businesses, which is why the Women’s Business Council toolkit is available to employers of any size. We have also appointed the Business in the Community age at work leadership team as the business champion for older workers. We very much hope that its work will help employers and women understand their rights.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

6. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of women in FTSE 100 finance chief roles.