Draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 General Committees

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I start by confirming that we do not intend to divide the Committee on this statutory instrument, but that is because we agree with the principle and not the way the Government in which have carried out the process, and I will go into some detail on that. Today’s debate has not covered the Government in glory, and there remain some significant questions for them to answer.

The Minister was very robust in his response, but I do not think that that energy was particularly matched with substance when he was answering Members’ questions, and he might reflect on that when he responds, because there are legitimate concerns. I have been to many of these Committees, and perhaps those on the Home Office Front Bench are a bit more energetic than those on the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Front Bench, but this has been one of the most engaged Committees I have been to, because of the process and the way it has been handled, and I will go into some details on that.

Labour is consistent in its support for directly elected Mayors for our combined authorities, and it has long supported aligning the powers where they are coterminous with those of the police and crime commissioner. We supported it for the Mayors of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, and although the model is different in London, we see similar powers there. We have supported the same for York and North Yorkshire, and we supported the proposal for South Yorkshire too. So there has been consistent support for bringing those powers together over a number of SIs.

[Chris Philp]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has found the debate energising and engaging—we aim to keep him entertained. He mentioned South Yorkshire, and I should have said that it is the Government’s intention to bring forward a statutory instrument rather like this one in the very near future to do the same for South Yorkshire as we are doing for the west midlands. It is only right to put that on the record, because we are taking a consistent approach.

[Jim McMahon]

On the basis of today’s exchanges, I hope that lessons are learned from the consultation and public engagement in the west midlands and that those are applied to the South Yorkshire consultation before that SI comes forward. It is important that we bring the public with us. Let us not fool ourselves: not every member of the public talks about these issues over their cornflakes, but those who are interested will want to know that, where they have expressed concerns, those have been taken on board. I heard the exchange earlier about “copy-and-paste responses”. We should not discount those. If people have taken the time to submit a view, it cannot be discounted. I heard the Minister—perhaps I misheard him—saying, “Well, if you discount all the negative views, what was left was quite positive.” Well, of course, that would be the case in every consultation, but I am not sure that it is quite in the spirit of—

[Chris Philp]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim McMahon]

I can do, but we might be here for some time.

[Chris Philp]

For the record, I did not quite say that. I did not talk about disregarding all the negative responses; I referred specifically to the copy-and-paste ones. However, I would like to make it clear for the record—

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[Jim McMahon]

I appreciate that clarification, but I think we all got the gist of where the mood was on that. I do think that this is a problem with how Governments, not just in Westminster but more generally, do politics in the UK. We start off with a predetermined view, or even a predetermined outcome, we go out to consultation, which is a paper exercise, and we do not adequately change our position when new evidence comes to the light. Politics needs to learn that listening and acting are not always the same as an embarrassing U-turn. I say that as a point of principle rather than about anything in particular, but I thought it was worth raising.

It is pretty clear that the Government have not brought on board widespread support on this issue in the way we have on other areas, and there are a number of questions that fall from that. Devolution is not just about doing things to people or imposing the will of central Government, based on what they already believed to be the outcome; it is about the Government working with local people to co-produce the outcome that is right for their area. So my questions for the Minister are as follows. What plans do the Government have to consult local authorities further, or do they conclude that the matter is now done and dusted? Before pressing ahead, will the Minister commit to a further formal consultation that commands the confidence of the west midlands region?

As the police and crime commissioner for the west midlands has pointed out, the Government have made a complete mess of the whole process, and I understand that an application for a judicial review has been submitted that will be considered next week. I know that that is a separate process, and I do not intend to go into the legalities, but the situation as it stands is remarkable, and not one I have faced in previous SIs on devolution matters.

Despite failing to secure the mandates needed in ’19 and ’21, the Conservatives decided to legislate to remove the requirement for democratic approval in 2023. On 6 December 2023, the Home Secretary approved the transfer without the lawfully required public consultation. The Home Secretary subsequently and retrospectively decided to launch a public consultation, which went against the outcome that the Government wanted, yet they decided to press ahead anyway. We are nine weeks before the mayoral and PCC elections and the administrators, the candidates and the parties still have no idea what is going to take place. They just feel very much as though it has been rushed to try to meet the deadline of the election for political purposes, rather than it genuinely being about due process and public engagement in a meaningful way. What legal advice have the Minister or his colleagues in the Home Office sought regarding the approach taken by the Government? Will they publish the legal advice in full? This whole discussion feels quite symbolic of the Government’s limited approach in general, tinkering with the structures and shifting significant powers between existing bodies, rather than away from Westminster or Whitehall down to communities at a closer level. It stands as a matter of fact that devolution under this Government is fragmented, piecemeal and has not gone far or fast enough. The powers and resources do not touch the sides of what is required for communities to have control over their own areas and futures.

Labour would push power out of Westminster with a take back control Act that gives communities a direct say in their future. It would start by giving all Mayors the powers and flexibility to turbocharge growth in their areas, including over planning and housing, transport, net zero and adult education and skills.

[Grahame Morris]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend’s flow, but will he give an opinion? There is a plethora of different arrangements; apart from my own region, I was just looking at Liverpool. There is Greater Manchester and Merseyside, which has a separate police and crime commissioner, as well as Steve Rotheram, the elected Mayor. There are issues with the consultation, and the members of the combined authority who were asked did not support merging the two. In the circumstances, would it not be sensible for the Committee to defer making a decision until after the judicial review has been considered on or after 7 January? Does my hon. Friend support that request for a deferral?

[Jim McMahon]

There are two separate points there. The first is on whether there ought to be uniformity or it should be accepted that there are different powers in different places. The Labour Front-Bench position is that where boundaries are coterminous in a place with a police and crime commissioner and a directly elected Mayor of a combined authority, both powers should be brought together with local support and consent. Where they are not coterminous, it would not be right for a Mayor in one area to take on political powers that transcend the boundaries of the combined authority in that respect. That is certainly the issue in Merseyside.

The other, separate issue, which I touched on, is a fair one: given the judicial review, should the Government press ahead or not? Certainly, the advice that we have taken is that they are two linked but separate processes. Parliament and the Government will carry on with their process, and the courts will make a judgment on the JR and its merits. It will or will not have an implication, but that is no reason not to progress at this point given the advice we have had.

I certainly take the power of the objection and the concern about the way in which things have been done, because it is a unique situation in which there are such legitimate concerns. There is a danger that the concerns raised are dismissed because the Government have the votes to get the change through regardless, which would be a mistake. If we do not bring people with us and convince them that it is the right thing for their area and can make a positive difference, and it is done despite, not with, the will of local people, that is not the road to empower people to make a change for their area.

[Michael Fabricant]

I am listening to the argument presented by the hon. Gentleman. He says there is a will against it locally and so on and so forth; how can he say that? We have the objection of some politicos who do not like the idea that perhaps they may lose their job. We have 7,000 people out of 3 million—I will repeat that: 7,000 people out of 3 million—who responded. That is hardly a majority at all saying that they do not agree with it. The majority of people just want us to get on with the job.

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[Jim McMahon]

With respect, as I touched on previously, although these are not the types of issues that dominate household conversations and inspire people—they have other things to get on with—I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at the responses to the consultation on the creation of the West Midlands Mayor in the first place, to which I say there would have been a comparable number. That is not a reason to do it or not to do it; my point is that when people make a representation, it should be taken in good faith. Whether they are for or against, if people make substantively fair points, they should be taken on board. The point about due process, local engagement and bringing people with us on that journey has been made, and it is a fair one. Without pre-empting or getting ahead of the judicial review, there is a reason why it was brought about: because there are concerns about that process.

Labour would offer all places the right power in the right places to negotiate with Government for powers that have been devolved elsewhere. We of course recognise that local government—the building blocks on which devolution is built—is in a fragile state, and its funding settlement has given rise to a number of concerns on that front, but we believe that devolution is the way forward and that it really does answer the question of how people can feel far more power and agency in the places where they live and that they care about.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I rise to support the legislation because I firmly believe that it is consistent with the Government’s policy. The merger will improve standards and efficiency, and I believe it will also help to cut crime in the west midlands. Crucially, it will enable the Mayor—whoever that is after the May elections—to set the West Midlands police budget, to appoint chief constables and to issue a policing plan.

In constituencies like mine, Aldridge-Brownhills, things like this really do matter to our residents. The elected Mayor currently has devolved powers in areas such as transport, regeneration, housing and skills, which are all very much about people, place and communities, so it absolutely makes sense to combine the role with that of the PCC. At the end of the day, if it is good enough for London, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, why is it not good enough for the west midlands? Particularly given the size of the west midlands region, it just no longer works to have a separate PCC.

We often talk in this place about the really complex issues that need to be tackled, such as knife crime and violent crime, which need a much more joined-up approach. That is a further reason why combining the two roles would enable much more joined-up thinking at a regional level. I have to say that we currently have a PCC who is acting with very little regard to communities, certainly in areas such as mine, on the periphery of the west midlands—I sometimes wonder whether he actually knows where Aldridge-Brownhills is, but never mind—as demonstrated by his determination to push ahead with the closure of the Aldridge police station, putting politics before people and communities. I believe that combining the role of the Mayor and the PCC will result in a much more holistic, community-focused approach.

[Jim McMahon]

As a matter of principle, the police and crime commissioner is not here to defend himself against or rebut the argument that is being put forward against him. We can of course make the point on policy, and have a difference where differences exist, but let us not make it too personal by criticising an individual—from any party—who is not here to defend themselves.

[Wendy Morton]

With all due respect, I think that others in the room have made things personal, perhaps without mentioning a name. I am standing here to defend my constituency and to make sure that I get the best for Aldridge-Brownhills.

Fundamentally, I come back to my point that combining both roles under the leadership of one person—we do not know who that will be after the May elections, and I am not being presumptuous at all—will enable a greater, more joined-up approach that will benefit communities and our constituents, with a much greater focus on them. We need this to happen and to get on with it. Let us get this done. We have the opportunity to see that happen and to deliver for our constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

On the dates, we are working with local authorities to give them as early visibility as possible about the anticipated number of people with decisions that have been granted that they should expect to see. That helps to forward-plan and we are mindful of those points. As things stand, there is no intention to change that 28-day period. Clearly, planning and working with local authorities is critical, but in many cases people have more than 28 days within which to vacate.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Oldham has a proud history of supporting the persecuted. As of March last year, our town is home to 910 asylum seekers, 145 of whom are in hotel accommodation, but there the housing crisis meets the homelessness crisis: 1,000 people in temporary accommodation, including 500 children. Is it not time that the Government reviewed the dispersal policy, to ensure that every part of England plays its fair share? I gently point out that Braintree is home to just two asylum seekers, as opposed to Oldham’s 910.

[Tom Pursglove]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I and my officials are carefully considering what more can be done to ensure that there is equitability in the approach to dispersal. That is critical, and we need to work carefully through some of the pressures and challenges that these issues present, but I gently say to those on the Opposition Benches that a key part of the response is to get the flows into the system down, and they do not have a credible plan for doing that.

Town Centre Safety

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I accept without reservation that there is considerable courage and selflessness in being a first responder whose job and duty is to run towards danger when everybody else is running away from it.

Let me begin with the simplest facts. Since 2010, neighbourhood crime—the crimes that undermine the fabric of communities and make people feel unsafe in their homes and on their local streets—has fallen. The crime survey for England and Wales, which the Office for National Statistics described as

“the best estimate of long-term trends in crimes against the household population”,

shows that since 2010 overall crime levels are down by more than 50%. Violent crimes as a whole, which include crimes that involve any form of offensive weapon, are down by 52%. Theft overall, which includes domestic burglary and the theft of a vehicle—some of the most invasive thefts that go directly to a person’s sense of personal security—has almost halved since we came into office. Domestic burglary currently stands at its lowest ever level.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister accept that the workplace is a personal place for those who work there? The Co-op Group has reported that in the year to date some 300,000 incidents of abuse and violence have taken place in shops up and down the country. Employees who are just there to sell to the public in their community are the victims of abuse and, in some cases, violence, but the police do not even turn up to 76% of reports, so how can people feel safe going to work?

[Laura Farris]

I will come specifically to shop workers. I have no difference of opinion with the Opposition on the points about the role of shop workers and some of the issues that affect them personally, and I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I will come to that.

There are today more police officers in England and Wales than at any other point in our nation’s history—

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[Laura Farris]

The hon. Gentleman asks a fair question, and I will have to get back to him on that. I know that the number in my part of the Thames Valley is quite low, but that may not extend to Reading. He deserves an answer on that, and I will get one to him.

The Government have also ensured that the police have the resources they need. This year they received record funding of above £17.2 billion. That is an extra £550 million for frontline policing compared with last year. I gently remind those on the Opposition Benches that they voted against our police funding settlements every single year between 2016 and 2019.

I want to draw our attention down to community level and make a few observations. We have had a commitment from the National Police Chiefs’ Council—it was announced in August, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North will recall—that the police will follow up on all reasonable lines of inquiry and that there is no offence too small. That commitment is intended to offer huge reassurance to the public. It was also this Government who introduced the safer streets fund, which has been in receipt of £120 million already, for 270 projects covering all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and which is complemented by the StreetSafe app.

All that kind of thing can seem quite microscopic, as though it only affects individual streets or individual parks, reporting a broken light or a dark and dangerous corner of a popular area for jogging. The point is that people can report the area and action will be taken, and all that contributes to improving the fabric of communities up and down the United Kingdom.

I want to spend a moment on retail crime, which I will deal with in two parts: first I will cover shoplifting itself, and then I will move on to assault on retail workers. I take issue, very respectfully, with the suggestion that somehow the Government are being complacent in shoplifting. The Government are clear that we expect the police to take a zero-tolerance approach to shoplifting and violence towards shop workers. I want to disabuse anyone of the notion that somehow we have decriminalised shoplifting offences below £200.

I gently draw the shadow Minister’s attention to the following. In 2020, the National Business Crime Centre surveyed police forces in England and Wales, asking whether they had a policy of not responding to shoplifting if the goods were worth less than £200. Not one force in England and Wales said that it had such a policy. He will know as well as I do that the National Police Chiefs’ Council recently produced a retail crime action plan, which included a commitment to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence had been used against shop staff.

[Jim McMahon]

I accept the explanation that it is not a written policy, but how does the Minister explain that in 76% of the 300,000 sample cases, the police did not turn up?

[Laura Farris]

It is difficult for me to identify every single complaint and whether somebody has attended, but one thing I think is relevant is that the increase in shoplifting that we have regrettably seen over the past 12 months has been met by a corresponding and equivalent increase in the volume of charges for shoplifting offences. Charges are up by 29% in the past 12 months. I gently draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to that.

I want to talk specifically about offences against retail workers. I invite the hon. Member for Nottingham North to answer this point when he closes—it is not put in an aggressive way, because I recognise the role that retail workers perform and it is completely unacceptable that they should be subject to violence in the line of their duties, but it is already unlawful to commit an act of assault. It is criminalised under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Offences against the Person Act 1861.

The hon. Gentleman knows, because we have already had this discussion, that there is a statutory obligation to treat the fact that an individual is a retail worker as an aggravating factor. He has identified the fact that the trade unions support a new law, but I say very respectfully that the judges do not, the Crown Prosecution Service does not and the police forces I have spoken to do not. The practitioners in this area of the law do not support a new law. Even though he has made that point, he has not identified any case where he considers there to have been a miscarriage of justice because the laws were not sufficient to offer protection. It is not enough simply to assert that we need new laws without setting out clearly why the existing statutory protection does not succeed.

Let me now turn to the issue of antisocial behaviour—it is not minor or trivial, and I make no bones about that. It is probably the principal crime that all MPs hear about, irrespective of the constituencies we represent. I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we have taken a range of legislative and non-legislative action. A new antisocial behaviour action plan was introduced earlier this year, backed by £160 million of funding to ensure that our commitments have real teeth. He will be aware of the hotspot patrolling pilot that has been conducted across 10 police forces and is about to be rolled out on a national basis because of its success.

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[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The reason why we are all in the Chamber for this debate is that we understand the importance and significance of our town centres and high streets. They are our community, they are our economy, and in large part they are the heritage of our place—that is why we hold them so dear. Every town centre is different, unique in its character; even within constituencies, we recognise that. I see it myself in Oldham, Chadderton and Royton: each has its own identity, its own place in history, and its own role in the community.

Over the past decade or more, though, we have not just seen the usual changes that take place over a lifetime. Town centres have always had to change: they had to change when the rise of the shopping centre changed the traditional long high street, when the retail parks opened and when online retail took off. They have always adapted and changed, but now it feels like a combination of factors are undermining the potential of our town centres to thrive and have a place in the future, and some of them come at the direct behest of the Government. If we accept that our town centres are important for our community, our economy and our heritage, those are the things that will be affected if we do not take action.

Let us list some of the changes that will be familiar to every single community—almost nowhere in the country is protected from these changes. Banks, including banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer and are owned by the state, are closing high street branches. In the past 10 years, nearly 8,000 branches have closed, which of course affects local jobs, but also reduces the footfall in town centres and high streets. In some cases, if people cannot go to the bank, they do not have a reason to go into town at lunchtime. There are some exceptions—Nationwide, a mutual, has made a commitment to ensure that its branch network is maintained—but we do not see the same commitment from many high street operators. That is undermining our town centres.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important and valuable point. The development of banking hubs in some towns, such as in Stone following the loss of Lloyds bank, will have a big impact. Does he agree that banking hubs should be rolled out across many more towns in his constituency and mine?

[Jim McMahon]

I do agree with that—in fact, it is Labour party policy to create those banking hubs—but we should not have got into this position to begin with. It should have been required by law that the last bank in town has a community responsibility. There is not a single bank in Royton or Chadderton district centre; we would have to build a hub from scratch, because when the Lloyds and Halifax closed in the respective towns, the Government took no action to say, “Hang on. We have already lost five, six or seven banks. We need to make sure at least one remains, so that there is consumer choice.” There will be a lot of making-up to do when the election comes; it will be done, but I am afraid we will be starting from a very low point. However, I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s generous point about the importance of those banks.

We have had 9,000 shops close in the last decade, affecting 125,000 jobs in their communities: 41% of those were clothing shops, 19% sold household goods and 10% were convenience stores. Thinking about convenience stores, whether it be the local Co-op, Tesco Express or Morrisons, where will the cash machine be after the bank closes? The bank closes, the post office closes and the convenience store closes, and there is no cash machine for people to take out money from the bank, leading to financial isolation in many places.

Pubs are the beating heart or the anchor of many communities, and the place where people can get together to tackle loneliness and isolation. Particularly in industrial towns such as mine, the buildings of significance on the high street—where the heritage is really brought out and we get the character of the place—are the church, the pub and the town hall. In many places, those big assets are under threat. Some 13,600 pubs have closed in the last 10 years—the numbers are down 22%.

If we look at the public sector, in my town of Oldham—a town of a quarter of a million people—thousands of jobs are being taken away from the town centre. Those are people who do not go out to lunch to buy a sandwich and do not support local retail. More than that, it removes a sense of identity and of belonging in a place, and it has an impact on how safe people feel there. The Government have not just closed our county court and our magistrates court, but caused the closure of so many police stations that there is not a single custody cell in our town. Even if somebody was arrested for violence against a shop worker, they would be taken out of town to be processed. The chief superintendent in my town says that that has a material impact on the decisions officers take about arrests being made and people being taken to custody, because they cannot afford to take a whole day out from the frontline on the beat for that. It is having a material impact.

[Jess Phillips]

My hon. Friend talks about the time that takes up for police officers. I was sat recently with my ill father for 24 hours in A&E—not just a TV programme—and I noticed that there were three shift changes of police officers to sit with somebody who was also waiting for 24 hours in A&E, so the crushing of public services elsewhere is detrimental for our police forces.

[Jim McMahon]

We do see that, as I will come on to say a bit later. In Oldham town centre, we have a lot of conversions from offices, pubs and retail to houses in multiple occupation. A lot of complaints are caused by that concentration of high-demand social problems, but there is not the back support that used to be there for drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and on-street offences. In the end, the police are the only number people call because they are the only ones who might turn out. The point about attendance at A&E is absolutely right. In many places, the police are not just upholding the law, but trying to keep society together because all else has given way.

We see these problems much more broadly, even beyond the public sector and in local government. Our HMRC office has closed and the Department for Work and Pensions office has closed, taking hundreds or thousands of staff away from the town centre. We are also seeing cuts to arts and culture: local theatres have closed and local community organisations have withdrawn services away from towns.

More than that, in the face of such decline, local authorities have been disempowered in dealing with what follows. We have seen offices that used to provide footfall and jobs for the local community being converted, with no consideration of the capacity and infrastructure of the local community, to substandard accommodation—we call them guinea pig hutches because they are so small, and they do not provide the right living standards—or to HMOs in which people have shared accommodation. The Government’s housing benefit changes in relation to financial provision for under-21s are adding to that social problem. The market has been completely changed, so when we walk down a high street, what used to be a pub, a bank or a shop is completely blank. We can walk from door to door without seeing a single shopfront because they have been converted to that type of residential use, with all the issues that brings.

Another issue is ownership. The Government could bring in a register of beneficial ownership so that we know who owns our high streets. The trouble many local authorities have is that a building can be empty and boarded up for decades or generations, attracting antisocial behaviour, but they are not able to take any action because they cannot find out who the owner is. If the owner is registered at that address, but they are not there, how on earth does the local authority find out who owns it? Many owners are offshore or around the world. The Government could make that change, but they choose not to do so.

On taxation, how odd is it that with business rates, someone is taxed before they can take a penny through the till? They are taxed to open the shop door. They can take not a single penny through the till during a trading day, and they will pay to exist. There is no other form of taxation that charges people to exist; it is usually charged on the income they receive or the profits they make. That is not the case with business rates, and that is having a material impact on the survival of shops.

On transport and accessibility, how many bus routes have been cut so people cannot get into town? Especially in rural and coastal communities where the service is not as frequent, when it gets cut, how on earth do people get anywhere near their town centre?

On crime and antisocial behaviour, many MPs in the Chamber will have attended their local high street and town centre for Small Business Saturday, when we of course celebrate independent retailers, and they will have heard the same story that I have heard from Maggie Hughes, who owns a clothing shop called Zutti in Oldham. It is a staple of our community: it has been there for 40 years, and everybody knows and loves Maggie and the staff who work there. She is also the vice-chair of the town centre board. She said that she is fearful for the street and the way it is declining, because of antisocial behaviour and crime. For the first time ever, I had to wait to be buzzed in before I went through the door because, for her own safety and that of the shop workers, she has had to put a security lock on the door. That is not right.

It is not right that people go to work fearful for themselves and for their staff, let alone for their stock. Most retailers accept that, to a degree, they are going to get some marginal loss of stock, as they call it. However, they do not at all accept that the staff who are there to work—by the way, many of the employees in retail jobs in town centres are female—are vulnerable not just to theft, but to people turning violent if they are challenged. Even more than that, if when they are challenged they are detained, staff can call the police, but the police do not even turn up in the majority of cases.

We can see how all this is adding to the perfect storm, which is why the Co-operative party, USDAW, the Labour party and Co-operative Retail Services are demanding a change in the law to protect shop workers. It is not enough for this to be an aggravating factor; it has to be a stand-alone offence. This Parliament makes laws that we expect shop workers to uphold—on cigarette sales, on alcohol, on knives, on fireworks—and they deserve the protection of this Parliament in protecting our communities, so no more words; let us see action on that front.

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[Chris Philp]

I am not sure what that has to do with the devastation that the last Labour Government wreaked on the economy, with the biggest recession for a generation and unemployment at twice the level it is today. I am surprised that the hon. Member wants to talk about the last Labour Government’s appalling economic record.

Let me return to crime and policing, or you will tick me off for being out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I acknowledged a moment ago that there are some areas where we need to do better, and shoplifting and antisocial behaviour are two of those, as Members on both sides of the House have said.

Let me start with shoplifting. Across the western world, including in the US, Germany and France, in the past year or two we have seen a considerable increase in shoplifting, and the same has happened in the United Kingdom. While the 29% increase in prosecutions for shoplifting in the past year is welcome, we clearly need to do more. That is why the Government set out a retail crime action plan to do more in this area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) said in his excellent speech. That was published just a few weeks ago. It includes a commitment by the police to attend shoplifting incidents where that is necessary to secure evidence, where there has been an assault, or where a suspect has been detained, for example, by store security staff.

It is not acceptable, frankly, that the Co-op has discovered that in about three quarters of cases where its staff have detained an offender, the police did not attend. I have said directly to the police that that is not acceptable, and they have responded with the commitment they have made in the recent action plan. I expect better, and the police have committed to delivering better.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I promised to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling, but I will then give way to the hon. Member.

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend has a much better memory than some Opposition Members.

[Jim McMahon]

If we accept that there was nothing the Government could do about the near quarter of a million cases—the Minister has used the Co-operative Group’s figure himself—where a police officer did not turn up when somebody had been apprehended, is he now saying that, from today, a police officer will turn up to every single call from a Co-op store?

[Chris Philp]

Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on this issue, has committed in the retail crime action plan, which I urge the hon. Member to read, that where an offender has been detained, the police will prioritise attendance. I expect all of us in Parliament, and police and crime commissioners, to hold the police to account in delivering that commitment. The police have also committed to identify and target prolific offenders, and to always follow reasonable lines of inquiry in relation to all crimes, not just shoplifting. That includes, for example, always retrieving CCTV or mobile phone footage and running it through the police national database to seek a facial recognition match to identify offenders.

The technology has improved enormously, even in the last six to 12 months. The artificial intelligence that drives it means that images that appear to be blurred or partially obscured, which a year or two ago could not be matched, now can be matched. Always running images from Ring doorbells, mobile phone pictures, dashcam footage and CCTV footage through the police national database will lead to very many more offenders—shoplifters, but also others—being caught. I have asked all 43 police forces across England and Wales to double the use of retrospective facial recognition in the coming year, to make sure that more offenders are caught.

Time is pressing, so let me move on to antisocial behaviour, which a number of Members on both sides of the House rightly identified as a challenge in town centres. My hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) both made, in their very different ways, powerful speeches on this topic, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) and others on both sides. Antisocial behaviour is a scourge. It leaves people feeling uneasy when they visit their town centres, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich that we need a zero-tolerance approach.

In the last five or six months, we have trialled antisocial behaviour hotspot patrols in a number of police force areas, and they have been extremely successful. In the areas where they have been run—they have been fully funded with extra money, by the way—they have reduced antisocial behaviour by something like 20% to 30%. Staffordshire is one of the counties that has been trialling the patrols, along with Lancashire and Essex. Because the approach has been so successful, we will roll it out across the whole country from April next year. It will be fully funded and that will pay for something like 30,000 hours a year of hotspot patrolling in each police force area, to address the issue of people feeling unsafe or uneasy in town centres. My hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich, for Stoke-on-Trent North and for Stoke-on-Trent South mentioned that in their excellent speeches. It is coming soon; in fact, it is coming as soon as April.

I have set out the actions being taken on retail crime and on ASB, and I have set out the fact that crime is falling and that we have record police numbers, so let me come to the electioneering we heard from the Opposition. The hon. Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) called for an election in what was an extraordinary display of overconfidence, so let us have a look at what Labour delivers in government.

The last Labour Government delivered fewer police officers than we now have. They delivered double the levels of crime that we now have. In London, where there is a Labour police and crime commissioner, Sadiq Khan failed to recruit 1,089 officers, despite being given money by the Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) pointed out. He could have recruited them—the money was there—but he failed to do so. Knife crime under Sadiq Khan has gone up, and he was told off by the Office for National Statistics for misleading the public—let us be generous and say that it was unintentional—by claiming that knife crime had fallen on his watch. In the west midlands, where there is a Labour police and crime commissioner, they are looking at closing police stations.

Finally, let us look at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Just a year ago, the Labour party voted against that Bill. Labour Members voted against increasing the sentences for people assaulting emergency workers. They voted against making assaulting a shop worker a statutory aggravating factor. They voted against measures to clamp down on disruptive protests. They voted against making whole-life orders for premeditated child murder mandatory. In fact, in the Bill Committee Labour even voted against keeping rapists in prison for longer, having introduced release at the halfway point in 2003.

We have seen Labour’s record in government and its record in London and the west midlands, and we have seen Labour Members voting against strong legislative measures. The Government have delivered record police numbers and falling crime. We have got a plan on antisocial behaviour and on shoplifting. I commend that to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House condemns the Government’s failure to tackle town centre crime; is concerned that shoplifting has reached record levels, with a 25% rise over the past year and 1,000 offences per day, while the detection rate for shoplifters has fallen; believes that immediate action must be taken to stop the increasing number of unacceptable incidents of violence and abuse faced by shop workers; notes that the number of neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers has been reduced by 10,000 since 2015; and calls on the Government to back Labour’s community policing guarantee, which includes scrapping the £200 limit on crown court prosecutions for shoplifting in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, creating a new specific offence of violence against shop workers, rolling out town centre policing plans and putting 13,000 extra police and community support officers back in town centres to crack down on antisocial behaviour.

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to refer to the steps we are taking. We are going to introduce Martyn’s law to impose legal duties on public venues and those responsible for public spaces to secure them against potential terrorist threats. We are already taking considerable action to ensure that there is high-quality advice, best practice and support for those responsible for public places. Many businesses and organisations already do excellent work to improve their security and preparedness, but legislative requirements will go just that step further in ensuring that there is a robust approach and that everyone knows what their duties are.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wish to thank Mr Speaker for allowing me to speak as a constituency MP from the Back Benches today.

The Manchester Arena attack led to the devastating loss of 22 innocent lives, including those of Alison Howe and Lisa Lees, who were killed as they waited for their 15-year-old daughters to come out of the concert. I wish to place on record my heartfelt sorrow for the family and to reflect on their courage and dignity over the past nearly six years during the course of this investigation and report. I say to the Home Secretary that, given how long the victims have been waiting to see this report and the outcomes, the cruel findings of that report have to be acknowledged. Although she has done some of that, can she go further and put on record what will be done for the victims finally to put right the wrongs that have been identified in the report?

Child Sexual Exploitation and Safeguarding in Oldham

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I say how moving I thought the closing of that debate was, and your contribution in particular, Mr Deputy Speaker?

I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the Opposition Chief Whip for granting me permission to bring this important debate to the House of Commons Chamber. As those in the House will be aware, it is rare for a Front-Bench spokesperson to take to the Back Benches to lead an Adjournment debate. It reflects the issue of safeguarding and child sexual exploitation in Oldham, and allowing this debate to be had highlights just how important that is. The debate builds on the joint statement issued by me, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). I intend to use this time to focus on victims and the report’s findings; focus on safeguarding challenges during the period covered by the review; and touch on the disinformation campaign surrounding that.

Child sexual exploitation is a painful reality that both sides of this House recognise. It is in every community and we must fight it together. The report of the national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse chaired by Professor Alexis Jay was published in February. Its stark conclusions demonstrate that children are sexually exploited by organised networks in all parts of the country, in the most degrading and destructive ways.

Last week, the independent assurance review into historic child sexual exploitation in Oldham was published. It is important the House has an opportunity to debate it. I place on record my thanks to those who led the independent review team, notably, Malcolm Newsam, who I am sure the Minister will know from his work with the Home Office, and former senior police officer Gary Ridgway.

On the report’s release, Mr Newsam said:

“We found that throughout this period, especially services tackling child sexual exploitation provided by Oldham Council and Greater Manchester police were strategically ahead of those available in many of the local authorities at the time. However, these did not always translate at an operational level into the effective safeguarding of children experiencing sexual exploitation.”

He went on:

“Our own review of a sample of children has exposed significant failings in the protection provided by the statutory authorities to those children. We understand that Oldham Council and Greater Manchester police have agreed to review the management of these cases to consider whether any further action can now be taken in respect to the man who exploited these children.”

In that context, it was right for Greater Manchester police and the council to accept the findings in full and to give a full and unqualified apology to those who were let down.

In response, the council leader, Amanda Chadderton, told the press conference on the day:

“The vast majority of those children received the support they needed and were kept safe. The report references some of the commendable work of our social workers in children’s homes, but what is clear is that that was not true for all children, and one child let down is one child too many. It is absolutely imperative that our residents have confidence in those people who work to protect our children.”

The report included the case of Sophie, whose abuse began in 2006 when she was just 12 years old. There were a further 10 sample cases, which were later referred to the Messenger project, but they were not adequately followed up by Greater Manchester police or by social services. The council has confirmed that, during the review period, 11,000 safeguarding referrals were made to the authority and that the vast majority would have received appropriate support and safeguarding. But let us be absolutely clear: that is of no comfort to survivors who did not get that support.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I know that my hon. Friend feels grief, as I do, at what too many of our young people have been through. I want to commend, as I think he will as well, the victims for coming forward. They have shown courage in retelling their story, and that must have caused them pain. We also condemn the horrific crimes against them. Is he as concerned as I am about the failings in our institutions, including the council and Greater Manchester police, and among certain individuals? Does he, like me, want a reassurance that, if they have been negligent in their responsibility to protect these vulnerable children, they will go through a disciplinary process?

I apologise for this long intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker, but may I also ask my hon. Friend whether he has confidence that what is being proposed under Operation Sherwood will deliver by enabling victims to come forward and ensuring that offenders receive the full force of the law and are punished for the crimes that they have committed?

[Jim McMahon]

My hon. Friend makes very powerful points. It is clear that victims have been let down. When they went to the people who were there to protect them—social workers and police officers—they were left standing alone. Even with the passage of time, we need to make sure that the perpetrators, who carried out those disgraceful acts of abuse over a long period, feel the full weight of the law. Frankly, as leaders we put our trust and confidence in the professionals, the police service and social workers to do the right thing and to always step up to make sure that nobody falls through the gap. If there is any evidence that any professional reviewing those cases did not take the action that we would all demand and expect, that absolutely has to be reviewed and revisited, whether they are currently in post or have left. Also, if people have any evidence that has not yet been provided to the authorities that involves criminal allegations or failure, that needs to be brought forward to the appropriate authorities so that it can be properly investigated. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on all those points.

I know that Members across the House have dedicated themselves to supporting survivors of abuse in overcoming the hurdles in accessing justice. As MPs, we do that on a regular basis. In the cases outlined, the courage shown by victims who came forward absolutely stands out.

The report can be broadly separated into two areas of focus: the operational approach to keep young people safe, and political leadership and allegations being levelled online over the past three years that abuse by organised gangs was being covered up for political gain. It is important, therefore, that we do not shy away from the organised disinformation campaign that has sought from the outset to undermine the report and its independence, and that is now going so far as to claim that the investigators themselves are part of an elaborate cover-up. The report does not hold back from highlighting poor practice where it was found. They told uncomfortable truths in Manchester and Oldham, and they will do the same in the next stage as the review moves on to Rochdale. Will the Minister join me and others, such as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, in condemning the abuse that the authors have received, and underline the integrity and independent nature of this report?

For my part, the independent report is clear that, during the period from 2011, when I became leader of Oldham Council, I did absolutely everything possible to publicise the threat of child sexual exploitation and

“sought to tackle the issue head on.”

That was a hard and drawn-out battle to improve safeguarding support, and the battle continues today.

It is important to set out the journey. In the year before Labour gained control of the council, children’s safeguarding had been hit by a budget cut of £720,000, including £100,000 cut from the specialist CSE Messenger programme and £100,000 cut from the CSE residential home, removing dedicated police security that was in place to protect highly vulnerable girls from the abusers who sought continued access. The recruitment and retention of social workers was under significant pressure, with almost half of all posts covered by agency staff, with a high turnover of vacancies. The long-promised IT system was late in being implemented and demand for the service increased year on year.

The change in administration took place two months after the Rochdale grooming gang was charged, with Shabir Ahmed—an Oldham resident and former council employee—as its ringleader. Oldham immediately put safeguarding at the top of the priorities for the council and the police. His association with the council was reported in national newspapers as the case progressed through the trial. The council believed strongly—this was reflected in its actions—that it had to use all that was available and take whatever option was needed to tackle CSE and learn from the experiences elsewhere to raise public awareness.

When concerns were raised about the risks associated with the growing number of shisha bars, the council did all that it could to close them down and ultimately succeeded, publicly sharing concerns about high-risk venues in the Manchester Evening News and in an in-depth feature on BBC Radio 5 Live. Crucially, that also involved giving professionals in schools and colleges and others working with children updated guidance through the Project Phoenix practitioners’ handbook on CSE, which identified shisha bars as high-risk venues. The report highlights that the disruption activity was ahead of its time.

When the report into abuse in Rotherham was made public, Oldham Council carried out a full review of taxi licensing. The increasingly robust approach was challenged, including through successful appeals in the magistrates court, but in the end, we had the toughest regime in the region, addressing head on licences that were issued to people we believed posed a risk to the public. Although the report concluded that there was no widespread grooming in taxis or shisha bars, it demonstrated that Oldham’s concerns were legitimate and, although progress was made, at times the situation, frankly, was frustrating. The determination to reduce the risk of harm was absolutely clear. Oldham never shied away from either the scale or complexity of CSE or, for that matter, of forced marriage, female genital mutilation, online harms, radicalisation and extremism. The risks were fast-moving and evolving all the time, and they still are today.

By 2014, all social workers were employed by the council, except a single member of staff who was covering maternity leave on agency contracts. The new IT system had been brought in, ending gaps in records on complex cases. Oldham was one of the first councils in the country to establish a multi-agency safeguarding hub and to grant access to the police national computer to boost intelligence sharing. Oldham had developed a public campaign, including holding educational plays in schools that resulted in 70 victims and witnesses coming forward to tell their stories. It held stalls in the market hall and article after article set out the full scale and nature of abuse that was taking place in the community, often in plain sight.

The council also actively debated CSE in full council and was open about the scale, nature and risk that it presented in Oldham. By 2014, the Project Phoenix programme was rolled out across Greater Manchester, with ongoing campaigns under the “It’s not okay” banner, supported by dedicated local charities, including KOGS, which stands for Keeping Our Girls Safe. That is important because, ultimately, creating the space for victims to come forward is vital to securing justice. Ofsted inspections, peer reviews and internal reviews all pointed to Oldham leading the way in CSE. That was reflected in feedback from the Home Office, too. The fact that the report now points to significant gaps in support has been met with dismay and quite frankly with frustration, and I am deeply sorry to all those young people who were let down by the services that should have been there to protect them.

The report shows that there is much that political leadership can achieve, but it also lays bare its limitations. The political environment, then and today, is important. While I am supportive of the review and believe strongly that it needed to take place, my deep frustration is that the continued undermining of the independence of the report diverts focus away from justice for CSE victims and is in danger of eroding confidence even further. My town has seen that before, with far-right protests taking to the streets, smearing whole communities and setting out to divide.

That has increased significantly with the rise of social media and conspiracy theorists’ platforms such as Recusant Nine, led by Raja Miah, who seeks to make financial and political gain by spreading hate, racism and disinformation. We need to be clear with the people of Oldham about the motivations that sit behind that. They have little to do with being a victims’ champion. Why am I being so direct in this debate? Because as chief executive of the Collective Spirit Free School, he presided over a catalogue of serious safeguarding incidents, ranging from violence against pupils to child abuse in school. Not only that, but—unbelievably—he responded to the catalogue of abuse at the Collective Spirit Free School and referred to it as all lies, dismissing the experience of the victims who were abused.

In one of the most serious cases, which was confirmed by a serious case review by the Manchester Safeguarding Partnership, failings at the school prolonged the sexual abuse of a victim. To add to that, there are allegations that teachers were sexualising children, that basic measures such as background checks were not being carried out and, even worse—if it could get worse—that the safeguarding register was falsified during an inspection to cover up the failings at the school. To preside over that is one thing, but to deny it—those are not the actions of somebody who puts victims first. I am proud that as a Member of Parliament, I stood up to give a voice to pupils, parents and staff, expose the corruption that took place and, eventually, see the closure of those schools that were a risk to our children. That was what sparked the current campaign of targeted abuse, harassment and division in Oldham as he set out on a self-declared campaign of revenge. It is no accident that his campaign began within a week of being named by the Department for Education’s investigation.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is making such a powerful speech. I pay tribute to him for having the strength and determination to call out what has been quite disgraceful behaviour. The malicious statements that have been made by this person and the misinformation that has been spread have contributed to division and hatred in our town, which we have both received.

This is not something that is confined to Oldham. I put that important message to the Minister, and I would welcome her response. If these malicious statements that have taken hold are not tackled, this will spread beyond Oldham. They must be tackled.

[Jim McMahon]

I agree. After three years of this cloud hanging over our town, I can see the damage that it has caused, not only to the individuals who have been targeted by abuse, but to the families having their homes targeted, with death threats being levelled and all that brings—the anxiety, the stress and the strain. It is very difficult even to talk about that in a conversation like this, when we are reflecting on such a damning report. Victims have been through far, far worse and they need to be our focus, but the context is important.

It is important that this is called out, because I can see and feel that my town of Oldham is not just being divided; it is hurting. That was evident at the special meeting of the council that took place on Monday. It is true that some who are central to the campaign are driven by hatred and by politics, and that some have links to the far right. It is also true that some have been central to the spreading of lies and smears and the constant harassment of those whom they oppose. However, we need to be clear about the fact that not everyone who shows concern, who expresses disagreement, who attended that meeting and who make references online is part of that. There are many people with legitimate concerns, and it is important that we address those concerns head-on.

It is clear from that meeting that there are victims who have been let down and who, when they came for support, were turned away. It is clear that some people have loved ones who have been victims, and that others are horrified at the reality of the abuse that takes place in our country. However, I fear that if we do not build trust and a common ground in the mainstream of politics, the conditions for such a sensitive issue to be used to divide a town are set. Hope Not Hate, journalists and others have exposed this, but without action, we face a real risk of returning to the ashes of a town divided, and, furthermore, the risk that the disinformation and hatred will destroy the confidence that allows victims to come forward to seek justice through the proper channels.

For those of us who are genuinely determined to move forward and repair the hurt in our town and the hurt for the victims, the question is this: what are we going to do differently to create an environment where people can come together to work towards fighting against the evil of child abuse? The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has said:

“Public confidence comes from a willingness to be unflinching in facing up to these claims. And being honest about the past. However difficult that may be. And it comes also from a readiness to bring perpetrators to justice, regardless of the passage of time.”

I can say to the people of Oldham that we, their MPs, will fully play our part.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne has said:

“As operation Sherwood commits to reopening investigations we will be pushing for action, and in the end that will be the only test to deliver justice for the victims both identified in the report and beyond. There must be a readiness to reopen cases and secure prosecutions”.

I hope that the Home Office will give its full support to that mission, in Oldham and across the country, and that it will join us in encouraging victims to come forward, knowing that they will be given the support that they deserve.

I will leave the final word to the Greater Manchester chief constable, Stephen Watson, who has said:

“My message to those offenders is a simple one. If you think you have got away with it, you are wrong. And we are coming for you.”

Public Services

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely right. It was right that the National Crime Agency was set up, and it is absolutely right now that we have that increasing capacity in relation to cyber-crime. One issue though is how to attract people with those skills to work in the National Crime Agency and in our police forces. Having a more flexible approach to the way people can be employed in support of our police, and within our police, is a key way of doing that. I was pleased also to have introduced the direct entry at superintendent level, which has brought some other skills into the police. It is looking at such innovative approaches that will help in these matters.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that some of this is cultural? It is still quite often the case that, when online harassment is reported to the police, the police will tell people to come off the platform on which they are being harassed. That is not about resource; that is a cultural issue within the police and it is about how the real world and the online world come together. We also need more regulations for platforms. It is not right that these platforms are allowed to, essentially, self-police and to decide for themselves what they believe is appropriate.

[Mrs May]

As cyber-crime has developed, it has been necessary for the police to develop their approach, and that is absolutely right. Another thing that I was pleased to do as Home Secretary was to set up the College of Policing, which helps to provide the “what works best” advice to police forces in areas such as cyber-crime, which is, increasingly, the area that we have to look at, in addition to other areas of crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

We doubt whether many of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech will make it. There was an article in The Times yesterday—I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman saw it—that did not give any of the Bills a five out of five for their chances of passing. We will wait and see if any of them make it, never mind whether they have our support.

The spousal visa system leaves many people unable to see their children or their family. It is heartbreaking having to deal with that week in, week out and having children coming in saying, “When can I get to see my daddy?” If Home Office Ministers want to come to my surgery and sit in on those meetings, I would absolutely welcome it, because they should see what is happening at first hand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) will talk more about post-study work visas. We would welcome their return, because we believe that it is important to say to people who want to come and study in Scotland, “You are welcome. You will get to come here, to contribute to our society and to carry on your lives in Scotland after you have concluded your studies.” The UK Government seem to say, “Come, we will take your money for your international student visa and then you can go—we’re done with you.” That is just unacceptable; it is not welcoming in the slightest.

[Jim McMahon]

I agree entirely with the points the hon. Lady is making. Something that was absent from the Queen’s Speech was progressing the work on modern day slavery. I give credit to the former Prime Minister for the leadership she has shown on this issue, but it is clear that we need to do more on progressing the security and support given to victims of modern day slavery.

[Alison Thewliss]

I very much agree with that. A lot more needs to be done to ensure that people who have been victims do not end up being blamed for having been trafficked into the country or for being party to that. Those people should get some leniency and help from the Home Office, rather than it trying to remove them at the first instance.

On post-study work visas, the Government need to consider the fact that the Scottish education system has four-year degrees as standard and that many other degrees, such as engineering, architecture and medicine, are longer than three years. It should not be the case that people get three years into a degree and have to reapply, with no certainty that they will finish it. Those courses will be deeply unattractive to people if they do not know whether they can finish them. Perhaps each type of course should carry a visa with it, rather than there being an arbitrary three-year cut-off.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

Absolutely. The Queen’s Speech and the spending provisions that the Government have made allow for more police officers to be on the beat to tackle crime, to reassure potential victims of crime and to solve as well as to anticipate the incidents that cause so much misery.

The denial that I described is as plain as this: there are many people, including, I am sad to say, some people in this House, who simply will not face the fact that many of the people who commit crimes are cruel, vicious, heartless thugs and villains who deserve to be caught, deserve to be convicted and deserve to be locked up for as long as possible. That is what our constituents would say, and the fact that we do not say it frequently enough creates a gulf, at least in their perception, between what the people affected by these things, who live on the frontline, know and what people in this place think.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman might be about to reassure me that he takes as hard a line on crime and disorder as I do.

[Jim McMahon]

I can certainly reassure the right hon. Gentleman that I have never been called a snowflake. He must accept that if he was to look back at the 1800s and at the type of crimes being committed then he would see just how many were done by people stealing to survive—stealing clothes to wear and food to eat. Accepting how much of today’s crime is driven by poverty and absolute desperation is not being a snowflake; it is understanding the underlying social causes that lead people to commit crime.

[Sir John Hayes]

Crime is caused by many things, but the idea that crime is an illness to be treated rather than a malevolent choice made by certain individuals has been the pervasive view of those dealing with crime—criminologists and so on—throughout the period I have described, and that view is out of tune and out of touch with what most people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine know and feel.

Of course there are many causes of crime. Earlier, I heard the shadow Minister describe her working-class credentials. No one in this Chamber could trump my working-class credentials, and on the council estate where I was brought up most people were law-abiding. It was ordered. I do not remember much vandalism, and there was certainly not much crime. People lived in relative safety. If we went back to that place now, I suspect none of that would be true. There would be a high level of drug addiction, a high level of family breakdown, a lot of lawlessness and all the symbols of disorder. That is just the stark reality, and it has to be addressed. This Government are trying to do so in the measures they have introduced in this Queen’s Speech, and those measures deserve support because they strike a chord with the sentiments of the people we represent.

I was delighted to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is always a thoughtful contributor to our considerations. He exemplified what was once taken as read: that the duty of people in this House is to make a persuasive argument, to attempt to offer a thesis and then to advance their case. I have to say that the shadow Minister stood in sad and stark contrast to that principle. It is not enough simply to string together a series of exhortations with a beginning and an end. That is not what proper consideration of measures in the Queens’s Speech or elsewhere should be about, and it does nothing for the quality or life of this Parliament.

The immigration Bill is also welcome, although I share some of the doubts expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. A points-based system is good in theory, but regulation and enforcement was certainly a challenge and we will need to look at that very closely. What is absolutely clear, rather as with crime, is that the liberal establishment in this country is out of touch with the views of most of our constituents. Most people in this country, in every poll taken on the subject, think that we have had too much immigration for too long and that it needs to be controlled. It is not contentious to say that; it is not controversial. It simply reflects what most people feel and know. Having said that, all advanced countries enjoy immigration because it is necessary sometimes to bring in people because of their skills and for other reasons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman), who makes a very passionate case for the public services in her constituency. I hope to do the same. Public services go to the heart of this debate and to the heart of my speech. Like the hon. Lady, I will focus very much on my constituency, which is the Isle of Wight.

It has long been argued that the Island needs an island deal that recognises the additional cost of providing public services on an island. Throughout the UK, in order to support islands and isolated communities, the Government have generally provided either a bridge, as in the case of the Isle of Skye, or increased levels of funding, as in the case of the Scottish islands needs allowance. The Isle of Wight has to all intents and purposes been treated as part of the mainland United Kingdom, because we have never had additional support despite the additional costs. In various conversations I have had with the Prime Minister, he has been generous enough to agree the need for an island settlement. He has done so on visits to the Island in June this year, on record in the House on 25 September and in private conversations with me. I therefore hope that this is a discussion on content and not principle, but I am very happy to make either argument to the Secretary of State. I am delighted to see him on the Treasury Bench today.

[Jim McMahon]

Is not part of the problem the deal-making nature of such conversations, with areas pitched against each other? Does the hon. Gentleman support the Local Government Association’s recommendation for an independent body to assess local government need in every area to make sure that everyone gets their fair share?

[Mr Seely]

I know of no such case, but what I do know is that the Island is the only significant population on an island in the UK that has neither a fixed link nor increased funding. I am not necessarily playing my constituency off against other isolated communities, but there are specific additional costs that I would like to mention which I do not think have been met structurally by Governments for the past 50 years.

I intend to show to the Secretary of State an evidence-based case outlining what the additional costs are. By way of background, there is a wealth of evidence internationally, relating to the Isle of Wight and other islands in the UK, that shows the extra cost of providing public services on islands to the same extent as the mainland. Multiple surveys have found structural and economic challenges of severance by sea, which is the technical term, including extra costs from forced self-sufficiency and diseconomies of scale—smaller markets, fewer competitors in those markets. There are six, potentially seven, areas that I would briefly like to raise with the Minister and to put on the record now.

First, on local government services, the University of Portsmouth in 2015 estimated that the additional cost of providing good public services to the same standard as the mainland on the Isle of Wight was £6.4 million. Adjusted for inflation, that is now £7.1 million. Three specific factors were taken into account: the additional cost of doing business—for example, it costs 30% extra to build a building on the Isle of Wight because of the importation of materials via ferry; dislocation, with smaller markets and fewer entrants to those markets; and what is known as reduced spillover. A duel carriageway in Southampton does not help us and, vice versa, a duel carriageway in Cowes does not help the folks in Southampton because of severance by sea. We are asking that an agreed formula be devised—I make this speech with the full support of the Isle of Wight Council; we are working on this together—as part of a potential island deal that recognises these additional challenges, which amount to approximately 3% of the funding we receive.

Secondly, on healthcare, we have half the population needed for a district general hospital, yet we need to provide a district general hospital on the Isle of Wight because of the Solent. You cannot give birth on a helicopter; you cannot give birth on a ferry. We need to provide a decent level of care at a district general hospital on the Island, but we lack the throughput, the tariffs per head under NHS funding, to fund that. Our NHS trust believes the cost of 24/7 acute care is £8.9 million, the cost of ambulance services is £1.9 million, and the cost of patient travel to the mainland, of which there were over 40,000 journeys last year, is approximately £560,000. That is a total of nearly £11 million.

Thirdly, on local agriculture infrastructure, the Island is 80% rural and our rural economy is very important to our overall economic prosperity. However, we are again hampered by our dependence on the mainland. For example, under EU regulations—maybe gilded too much by UK officials—an Island abattoir became uneconomic. Livestock raised on the Island is shipped to the mainland for slaughter even if it is then imported back to the Island. That is less humane than local slaughter. It also adds costs and fuel miles. Considering we are trying to become carbon neutral, it is an unnecessary waste of resource.

A few key pieces of infrastructure would help us enormously—we have an Isle of Wight grain collective, so the Island is keen to explore the idea of forming collectives to solve these problems, but we could also do with some grant funding in recognition. These pieces of infrastructure are an abattoir, tanker and extra milk storage facilities, grain storage and milling facilities and a box erector for vegetables.

Fourthly, on housing, there is the need for an “exceptional circumstance” to be granted. In my opinion, the housing targets given to us meet the Government’s definition of unsustainable. They are bad for the Island and I believe that the methodology is flawed. The targets are nothing more than a projection based on historical trends that do not consider our future desire, first, to produce housing for Islanders and, secondly, as part of a national agenda, to shape a more sustainable and green future.

Developments on the Island, sadly, are too rarely designed for local people, but are instead designed for mainland—very often, retiree—demand. This forces our youngsters off the Island. We also do not have the infrastructure to support those additional homes, because we are an island. Our hospitals are full, public services are under pressure despite the extra funding, which I am grateful for, electricity and sewerage are at capacity and a third of our water comes from the mainland. The Green Book calculations do not serve the Island well. We intend to present an Island plan to Government that will have a significantly reduced figure, which our landscape and population can cope with, but which supports local demand. That is extremely important, and I would welcome Government support and understanding from the relevant Secretary of State and Ministries, so that we can make sure we get this through and help to create a sustainable, balanced demographic and a sustainable economy, and start paying into the Treasury.

Fifthly, on public services, I would like a unique public authority on the Isle of Wight that combines the work of our local authority, NHS trust and clinical commissioning group. Because of the nature of the Island—it is quite small-scale; social scientists tend to love us because we are an island, so we are easily measurable —this could be, along with areas such as Manchester, a role model of how to achieve much greater levels of integration throughout the country. However, we need a small pot of money and a sense of understanding of how this could work to make a success of it.

Lastly, on transport, we have the most expensive ferries in the world. They have very high profit margins, which Islanders, who earn 80% of the national average, have to pay for. My preference would be for Government support to look at different models of ownership and public service obligations.

Before I come to my summation I want to say that there may be additional costs from special educational needs provision. However, I did not want to hold up the letter to the Prime Minister, so they may come additionally.

Hopefully, I have outlined an evidence-based case looking at the additional costs of public services, and I look forward to following this up with Ministers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to start by placing on record my respect and appreciation for Her Majesty the Queen. She has conducted herself with professionalism and as always has given the country stability. So imagine somebody with that ethos being abused in such a way by this British Prime Minister. He misled her into proroguing Parliament by sending the Leader of the House up to Scotland to mislead and direct her and then used her for what was essentially a party political broadcast, knowing full well that after turfing out over 20 Tory MPs, he did not have the majority to get the business through anyway.

The Government will say, “It’s not about politics; it’s about policy, so why not get behind these important ideas?” They are so important that their Benches are empty. Where are the Conservative MPs? I can see two on the Back Benches, but I am guessing they are from the Whips Office or Parliamentary Private Secretaries. [Interruption.] They are PPSs. This is so important—it is their radical programme for Government—and not a single Back Bencher is here to support it. There are reasons for that: first, because of the chaos outside, as the Prime Minister ducks and dives his way around the country; and secondly, because they know, as we do, that this is pie in the sky. There is no way that it is going to happen.

The Queen does not, of course, give her personal views on Prime Ministers, but I wonder what she would make of her 14th Prime Minister, and how he might compare with the first, Winston Churchill. They are polar opposites, in terms of status and the way the country is being led in very difficult circumstances.

The Queen’s Speech could have been an opportunity to set out the state of the nation and the issues that are affecting it. Let me begin with local government. It is not possible to build decent public services if the very foundations on which they were based are, in many cases, broken beyond repair. We cannot escape the fact that more than 800,000 members of local government staff have been sacked on the watch of this Government and the previous coalition, thrown on to the scrapheap as if they were not important and did not add value. We cannot ignore the fact that 60p in every pound has been taken from council spending, or the fact that adult social care is in crisis, with a million people not receiving the home care that they need and deserve. We have seen neighbourhood services taken to the brink—and the Government wonder why the public are angry. They have a right to be angry when their youth and community centres are closing, knife crime is going through the roof and libraries are shutting.

Let us talk about crime. The Conservatives will say that they are the party of law and order. Well, that is interesting. Let us look at the facts. Twenty thousand police officers have been lost nationally, and in Greater Manchester 2,000 have been taken off the streets, as have 1,000 support staff who helped them to do their job. Police stations have closed in Chadderton, Royton and Limeside. A town of a quarter of a million people now has not a single custody cell. The magistrates court was demolished last month, and the county court has been closed. So what about law and order? We have a crisis in magistrate recruitment in Greater Manchester. Even if we employ those extra police officers, where are the police stations that they will work from? Where are the vehicles that they will drive? Where are the custody cells in which to lock up the bad guys, and where are the judges to make sure that justice is served? They just do not exist. It is all pie in the sky.

Let us look at schools. If we want Britain to thrive after Brexit, which is what we are told by the Government, surely the foundation for this country is critical, and what more foundation could we have than our young people? But when we see how much money has been taken away from early-years, primary and secondary education, from education for those with special educational needs and from sixth-form and other colleges, we see the truth of this Government. They want the country to be run on the cheap, because they do not value the people who live here. Young people who are growing up in Oldham deserve a better lot than is being offered by this Government. Ministers can laugh and they can scoff, but let them look at the unemployment levels in my town, look at the economy of my town, and look at the high street along which the people are walking. Shutters are down and there are boards on the windows, because this Government have no plan for this country. The high street is so important, and it was not even mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. Housing is so important, and it was not even mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. There is no vision for this country; it is all about electioneering.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Why don’t you want an election, then?

[Jim McMahon]

Because I care about the economic foundation of this country. I have seen what a decade of austerity has done to my town. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. It would be better if the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) intervened. Then, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) could reply. That would be absolutely fine. Jim McMahon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

I will give way.

[Chris Green]

If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about economic governance, why is he is so resistant, and why is his party so resistant, to the idea of a general election? Does he even want to come into Parliament for another debate on Saturday? The impression I get is that the Opposition do not want that either.

[Jim McMahon]

We can say Saturday, we can say Sunday, we can say for the next two years as far as I am concerned. We are here to do a job of work, and we will not be shy. One thing about the working classes is that we know the value of work and the importance of work, and it does not matter to us if we turn up on a Saturday or a Sunday if it means getting the job done. As for the reason why we do not want an election, we do not trust this Prime Minister any more than the Queen could trust this Prime Minister. We cannot afford, in my town, the economic damage of crashing out without a deal, but that is what we are facing today. We have heard promise after promise that a deal will be coming, and where is that deal? At the eleventh hour, there is still no deal, and the Conservatives are still pushing for a general election in this chaos of their own making. It is absolutely scandalous and a failure of government for this country.

[Chris Green]

rose—

[Jim McMahon]

I need to make progress now. The Parliamentary Private Secretary has earned his place; I am sure there is a promotion on the way very soon, and rightly so as he deserves it.

What about rebuilding our economy in a fair way? What about having a co-operative economy where those who create the wealth get to keep the value of what they have created, rather than it being sent offshore to tax havens and shareholders that have no stake in the community where that money is being generated? There was not a mention of co-operatives or mutuals; not a mention of trying to reset the economic and social contract of this country. There is no vision, there is no Government—and actually I do want a general election, but let’s get this nonsense out of the way first.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

I would like to say how much I enjoyed the tone at the start of the speech from the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) when she praised the work of public services. We all feel, on both sides of the House, that it is important they deliver for everyone in our country.

It is an honour for me to close this debate. I thank Members on all sides who have contributed to it. They made many passionate points, raising issues that are important to them and to their constituents. As we all know, the Government are working hard to deliver Brexit and honour the will of the British people when they voted for us to leave the European Union. However, our ambitions do not end there. At the same time, we are pursuing a bold programme of domestic reform that will protect and improve our public services, from strengthening our beloved NHS and making our streets safer, to giving our primary and secondary schools the biggest funding boost for a decade so that our children have the world class education that every single one of us in this House always wants to ensure they receive. The Gracious Speech is a contribution to, and a part of, that approach.

Let me pick up on a number of the issues raised by hon. Members. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) raised relationship, sex and health education. The Government are absolutely committed to it. It has our full backing and we want to be there backing schools. We recently announced a £6 million fund to develop a programme of support for schools. We very much want to ensure that all schools teach about Britain as it is today.

[Jim McMahon]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Gavin Williamson]

I would like to make some progress, if I may, because time is short. I will take interventions later.

The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) raised the national school meals programme. That is a very important programme, which we are very proud to have introduced. We will very much be supporting it going forward.

I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and for Guildford (Anne Milton), but especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. She has always done so much in the area of mental health, ensuring that it was a centrepiece of what the Government do and ensuring that we talk about it, not just in this Chamber, but much more widely in society. They have both played an important role in making sure that it is addressed in schools. We remain committed to doing that.

I highlight the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, and the hon. Members for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) and for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) on death by dangerous driving. They spoke from the heart. We have all seen the consequences of dangerous driving. It rips families apart and destroys so many lives. I will certainly reflect the comments that were made in this House to the Secretary of State for Justice.

There was much in what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) said that I agreed with on the importance of closing the attainment gap between those from the most disadvantaged families and those from more privileged families. We have been doing that in both primary and secondary schools. That is because we are reforming how we teach and deliver education, and the children from the most disadvantaged families are benefiting.

The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) talked about raising standards. That has been at the heart of everything that this Government do, because we recognise that continuing to raise standards in every single school for every child is how we give them the very best opportunity in life. I will give a bit of advice to the hon. Gentleman: scrapping Ofsted is not a way to raise standards in our schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson]

I will make some progress, thank you ever so much.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair), who raised the issue of post-study work visas. Conservative and Unionist MPs from Scotland have been raising that consistently, as have MSPs, and we are very glad to be able to deliver on it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) spoke eloquently about his time working in further education and on the importance of technical and vocational education. Both main parties in this country have recognised that for a long time. We will deliver on it and make sure that we deliver the type of change that is needed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) spoke about how important it is that we level up funding, raising it especially for some of the areas that have been persistently underfunded. This has been talked about for 20-plus years and we are delivering on it, thanks in no small part to his campaigning to make sure that it happens. He also spoke about the importance of special educational needs funding. I had the great privilege of visiting the hospital school in his constituency and seeing the important work that is done there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) highlighted the fact that his constituency was one of the areas that always had some of the lowest funding. We are changing that and delivering more money for every single school in this country.

What can I say about my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)? There is so much I could say. He spoke with passion about giving youngsters ambitions and dreams and delivering on them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) has done so much to deliver the borderlands deal for not only his constituents, but many constituencies in England and in the Scottish borders. It will deliver prosperity and employment on both sides of the border.

It would be remiss of me not to thank the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd). I particularly liked his bringing some levity into the Chamber with the prospect of a Liberal Democrat Government. It was an opportunity also for Labour and Conservative Members to unite in the thought of what a dreadful idea that would be.

I am also grateful for the clarity that the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) provided in confirming that the Labour party supported a trophy hunting Bill. That is good news, particularly for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), who is always trophy hunting the head of the leader of the Labour party. It was disappointing, however, that she could not make it clear that Labour would also support the Windrush Bill, the police protections Bill, the extradition Bill, the Domestic Abuse Bill, the serious violence Bill and the foreign national offenders Bill.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set out ambitious plans for transforming law and order. Her exciting plan to get 20,000 more police officers on to our streets will deliver for every part of this country. It is also positive that she understands that she needs the money behind her to deliver those extra police officers, and that is what she has secured from the Treasury. She understands, too, that 20,000 more police officers will cost more than £30,000. In addition, we recognise the importance of defending victims and ensuring the legal framework to support the most vulnerable in society, and that is what the measures in the Queen’s Speech will do.

Another service that our whole nation relies upon is our wonderful NHS. We are doing everything we can to protect this great national institution, which for 44 of its 71 years has been under Conservative stewardship. The Government have committed to a £33.9 billion per annum increase in the NHS budget by 2023-24. We want to make sure that this extra money makes a real difference on the frontline by bringing down hospital waiting times, reducing the time it takes to get a GP appointment and saving lives.

[Jim McMahon]

Lots of people in the NHS say that they want to see the funding go to adult social care, because the pressures that build in the system when the funding is not there has an impact on the NHS, so where is the Green Paper and the funding for our hard-working councils so that people can get the care they need?

[Gavin Williamson]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we outlined extra funding for that in the spending review.

Young or old, we are all increasingly dependent on the internet, and people of all ages across the UK will benefit from one of the greatest eras of infrastructure investment, starting with legislation to help accelerate roll-out of full-fibre broadband right across the country.

As we exit the EU, it is vital for our country’s future that we deliver the world’s best education system. Our reforms over the last nine years, initially done with the Liberal Democrats, have seen standards rise across the country. We are doing better and delivering more for every single child. It is concerning, therefore, that the Labour party seems willing to scrap free schools and academies—schools that deliver the very best. Just last week, I visited Everton Free School in Liverpool, where a football club had decided it wanted to put something back into its community, working with teachers who wanted to deliver something better. It is shocking that the Labour party wants to get rid of that. We want to deliver the very best. In technical education, in vocational education, in every single school, we are driving standards ever higher. We are putting the money behind it. We have delivered the reforms that are required. It is a shame that the Labour party has such a lack of ambition for every single child in the country. We are the party that wants to deliver for every child—to level up, not level down as the Labour party wishes to do.

I very much commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Deferred Divisions

Ordered,

That, at this day’s sitting, Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to the motion in the name of Secretary Julian Smith relating to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act.—(Rebecca Harris.)

Retail Crime

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson]

My right hon. Friend anticipates a later section of my initial contribution, which will be about the police response. I will come to that in due course, but it is a critical point. If shop theft takes place—if a member of staff at the local Co-op sees somebody stealing a bottle of vodka and they say, “Please put that back”, that is one of the major triggers for the shoplifter to engage in verbal abuse or violence.

I have talked about USDAW and the BRC. The Association of Convenience Stores represents some 22,000 shops, the smaller stores that are in every town, village and community in the United Kingdom. It has identified that for those 22,000-plus shops, the cost of retail crime equates to £246 million per year, or £5,308 per store. Critically, that means a crime tax of 7p in the pound on the price that you and I, Mr Robertson, pay for goods. That cost comes from the loss of goods through theft and from the information that has to be provided, through CCTV cameras and in other ways, to prevent those thefts in the first place.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern about how reductions in the police service have affected response times and confidence in the police? The Central England Co-operative has suffered 18 armed robberies, and its staff are very concerned about how vulnerable not knowing whether the police will turn up for some crimes makes them feel. Clearly, the police will turn up for armed robberies, but there are a great deal of threats and violence against our shop workers.

[David Hanson]

Given my hon. Friend’s contribution, and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I will skip a couple of paragraphs in my speech and return to my planned order later.

These rises and these concerns come against a background of reduced police numbers. In 2009-10, I had the great honour of being police Minister for the Labour Government, and when I held that post, the Home Office had 20,000 more police officers than it currently does. That has real impacts: on neighbourhood reassurance first and foremost, and secondly on visibility, but it also has an impact on response times. Obviously, people will respond to higher-level incidents, such as armed robberies—we had one in my constituency, in Flint, only this time last week. Police will respond to those incidents.

However, turning to the Government’s response to incidents of retail theft through the police forces, I will quote John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation. He has acknowledged that shoplifting is not a priority crime for stretched forces; he has said that

“as forces struggle to meet 999-call demand, incidents such as these are increasingly likely not to be attended by officers at all which, as a serving police constable with 26 years’ service, I find quite shocking.”

That backs up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) just made. Thames Valley police has informed its local shops that it will not send officers out to deal with shoplifters who steal less than £100-worth of goods. I do not think that is acceptable, and I do not think that the Home Office believes it is acceptable. In due course, I will return to address that issue in detail, but it is a point that has been raised, so it is important that we discuss it now.

Given what the Association of Convenience Stores has said, what do other people think about this? Let me put some quotes on the table. Paddy Lillis, general secretary of USDAW—the shop workers’ union—has said:

“The idea that shoplifting is a victimless crime is wrong. Theft from shops is often a trigger for violence, threats and abuse against shopworkers. The rising trend in shoplifting is extremely worrying”

for his members. Mike Mitchelson, president of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents—one of whose members was murdered in the past month, in a shop in Pinner in north London, because of the type of violence that we are discussing—has said:

“Across the country we are suffering from increasing levels of verbal and physical abuse and it’s important that the full nature…of the problem is understood.”

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said:

“Violence against employees remains one of the most pressing issues retailers face,”

yet its crime survey once again shows

“an increase in the overall number of incidents.”

James Lowman, chief executive of the ACS said:

“The financial implications of crime are clearly damaging for”

local shops, but their urgent priority is tackling

“the impact of violence, abuse and aggression on people working in”

communities. He said that “there is no excuse” for that abuse, and it must be stopped.

The Co-op Group retail chief executive has said that nothing is more important than colleagues’ safety. As a result, it has spent £70 million in the last three years on innovative security, crime prevention and colleague safety measures. However, it is clear to the Co-op that it needs support from the police, the judiciary and Parliament to make sure violence against retail workers is not tolerated.

We should be concerned not just about shop theft; violence and abuse against staff working in shops is simply unacceptable, and the Government must address it. The rise in theft is going hand in hand with violence.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Hanson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I will talk about the four or five solutions in a moment, but the outcome of this should not necessarily be putting more people in prison. It might actually be trying to deal with the causes of people committing offences in the first place. That scheme in Manchester is a good example of how that could be integrated, and maybe, with good practice, developed still further.

That brings me on to the question of drug and alcohol treatment orders. If, as the ACS says, 50% of repeat offenders are motivated by drug or alcohol addiction, the key is to stop the drug or alcohol addiction. The figures for community order starts for people who have been caught, convicted and given a community order show that, in 2014, which was well into the Government’s term of office, 8,734 drug treatment orders and 5,547 alcohol treatment orders were given. However, the figures last year were only 4,889 drug treatment orders—halved—and only 3,315 alcohol treatment orders, which were down by at least a third.

If I go back—dare I say it, it is a long time now, but it is still worth going back to—to the last years of the last Labour Government, in 2007-08, we gave 16,607 drug treatment orders, which is double what we had in 2014 and four times more than now. I simply say that one way we can support people is by identifying why they steal alcohol or other products for their own use. They are doing it to sell them quickly, or to satisfy their cravings. We have to have alternatives, such as that in Manchester, and drug and alcohol treatment orders, which also help.

Finally on the picture of where we are is the threshold for low-level shoplifting. As shadow Minister, I dealt with this issue in Parliament five years ago when the Government introduced a £200 threshold for low-level shoplifting under section 22A of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980, which means that people do not go to court for thefts of goods valued at up to £200. That in itself is fine, because if they are caught that might be dealt with by post.

However, this is five years on. The concern expressed to me from both outside and inside Parliament is that that has been seen as decriminalising shop thefts of under £200. That leads to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton made about police not attending, which leads to magistrates not taking cases in front of court, which leads to offenders thinking that they can get away with it. I simply say that we should look at that in detail and review this, now that we are five years on.

[Jim McMahon]

My right hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. To complete that picture, I visited a local Co-op store in my constituency, and the feedback was absolutely about drug and alcohol issues, but also that staff noticed a significant rise in people who just had no money, perhaps from universal credit delays; several women were caught stealing sanitary products, baby milk and nappies. It is absolutely right to point that out, but there are bigger issues in society that drive some of this that also need to be addressed.

[David Hanson]

I accept that, but we have to be careful not to equate poverty with shop theft. There are many people who have honour in themselves and will not commit crimes. However, I understand and accept that desperation can lead people to do things that they would not in perhaps more economically improved circumstances.

That background leads us to ask what we can do about this situation. I know that the Minister is engaged on this issue, and I give her credit. I moved amendments to the Offensive Weapons Bill to make age-related sales an aggravated offence. We discussed those matters formally in the Chamber, and we have discussed them informally. The amendments were withdrawn on the basis that the Minister would look seriously at the issue. I am pleased to say she had a roundtable, which I went to, as did all the parties I mentioned earlier—the retail organisations, the Co-operative Group and USDAW—so that solutions could be aired.

A helpful letter of 5 April that I had from the Minister indicates—I thank her for this—that she has now undertaken a 12-week consultation on issues including violence and age-related sales, prevention and support, the role of the criminal justice system and best practice. I urge Members and organisations to respond to it. I think that the Minister will find there is a unified voice, and that the solutions are clear to all. The challenge for the Minister will be to take them forward. She has supported an additional £50,000 of Home Office funding to the ACS, for running communications campaigns. She has looked at publishing impact statements for business, and is working with the police to develop guidance. That is all welcome.

I want to conclude with my six asks for the Minister. She looks worried. Some of them are things she will already be aware of. I started my speech by setting out what the BRC, the ACS and USDAW thought the level of attacks and violence against staff to be. I want first to ask the Minister to bring that together, so that we can identify retail crimes, their incidence, and the overall level. All those organisations, the newsagents and the ACS and USDAW, are acting individually and not as part of a formal Government response. They indicate that there is a great deal of under-reporting to the police because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton said, the police may not be able to respond owing to their lack of numbers. Also there is a question about what the scale of the problem is. As I quoted Paddy Lillis saying earlier, the crime is not victimless. People who are threatened in shops are traumatised. People who are injured in shops go home and have days off sick. People go to their doctor and fear coming back to work. Shops have to increase security. It is not a victimless crime. We must bring a record of the whole matter together, and the Home Office is a key part of that, in conjunction with Police Scotland—I see my Scottish colleagues are here for the debate—and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Secondly—this will come out of the consultation, but I must mention it now—the Government should consider legislating for an aggravated offence with respect, in particular, to age-related sales and abuse of shop staff. We have tested that through the Offensive Weapons Bill and it is part of the consultation discussions. I want the Government to do it, because in addition to the traumatic experiences I have mentioned, and the potential for long-term injury and for people to lose their jobs because of assaults, staff who are required to enforce the law are the frontline, and the Home Office must back them up.

Current sentencing is complicated. The sentencing guidelines for all kinds of assaults are that

“an offence committed against someone working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”

is “an aggravated factor”, but there is no clarity about what is contained within that. If someone is abusive that factor should be taken into account—perhaps for a community sentence, which might be the most appropriate route. I want the shop worker at the front of the Co-op on their own to be able at least to say to someone, “Look, there is a sign there. If you continue this poor behaviour you are liable for an aggravated offence. Please stop.” It is a protection, if not a final conviction.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I totally agree.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Muslim community in Oldham is deeply concerned about the prospect of being targeted in further attacks. The drip, drip of the type of lower-level abuse that I see online creates a culture in which people think that they can go further and push it, that difference is okay, and that there should be even further division. The application deadline for the Government’s fund to protect places of worship closed in August last year. We know that there is an underspend in that budget. There is no reason why the Government cannot have a rolling fund in place, so that applicants do not have to wait until the Government are able to administer the application process. Please take the brake off that fund and give places of worship the protection that they need.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman has great foresight; watch this space.

Police Grant Report

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will make some progress, then take some further interventions in a moment.

Supporting policing is not just about money; the police chiefs I have met have also consistently raised concerns about, for example, their officers’ welfare. That is why there will be more support for frontline officers, with a new national wellbeing centre of excellence. We will also help forces to identify mental health issues earlier with psychological screening, so that officers can access support and, where appropriate, stay in work.

The impact of next year’s funding increase will be immense. Forces will be able to continue to recruit and fill crucial capability gaps. They will be able to prevent more crime and deliver better outcomes for victims. We will work with PCCs and chief constables to make the most of this funding settlement. We are asking them to use the extra investment to address four priority areas next year. First, they should continue efficiency savings. Forces must see beyond their own boundaries and continue to join up to get better procurement deals and drive more benefits from shared services. Secondly, they should resolve the shortfall in detective numbers identified by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. We will work with the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to support forces in meeting this challenge. Thirdly, they should continue improvements in productivity, with a view to delivering £50 million of productivity savings in 2019-20. That will include the smarter use of data and improved digital capabilities, including mobile working, where appropriate. Finally, I expect all forces to respond effectively to the threat from serious and organised crime. This is an area that cannot and must not be ignored by anyone. I have delivered on my own promise to the police, and I now expect them to respond to the challenge that we have set them, as they did so well last year.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Home Secretary accept that the real lived experience of many people in Greater Manchester is that many crimes do not even get investigated, and are simply recorded? In many communities, police stations have been closed altogether, and in my own town we do not have a single custody cell left open for a population of quarter of a million.

[Sajid Javid]

Like so many Members, the hon. Gentleman makes an issue of the need for more resources. I have met his local chief constable and other police officers from his force, and they are doing some excellent work in difficult circumstances, with some particular challenges in Manchester. I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming today’s settlement, which contains an additional £35 million for his local force. If he wishes to discuss the needs of his local force further, I would be happy to meet him, as would the Policing Minister, to listen more.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Jim McMahon Excerpts

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

[Victoria Atkins]

I know this will not meet with the approval of Opposition Members but, having looked very carefully at it, we have not been able to identify a gap in the law, which is why, regrettably, I cannot accept new clause 1. We encourage closer local partnerships between police and retailers so that better crime prevention measures are put in place, because that must be a factor. We want to ensure that local police respond effectively to reported crime.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The reality on the ground, and USDAW and the Co-op Group have been clear about this, is that the police do not consider offences such as shoplifting, and all the things that go on around it, seriously enough even to turn up at a store to take a statement. It is a fact that shop workers at the tills are the ones enforcing the legislation that we pass. When we demand that identification is presented for alcohol and cigarette sales, and the like, it is those workers who are on the frontline in defending the legislation we pass. Surely they deserve our support, too.

[Victoria Atkins]

Of course, anyone working on the frontline deserves our support. The criminality the hon. Gentleman describes, such as shoplifting, is already enforced, so the discussion should be about local policing priorities. If he writes to me with particular instances in his constituency, I am very happy to raise it through the national retail crime steering group.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim McMahon]

I appreciate the Minister’s courtesy in allowing me to come back. The reality is that serious violent crime, organised crime and online crime, and the protection of vulnerable groups, takes up a significant amount of police time. In Greater Manchester we have lost 2,000 frontline officers, so it is not right for the Government who have made those cuts and made that decision to put the pressure back on Greater Manchester police to maintain a police service with diminishing resources when crime is going up. It just is not correct. She has an opportunity to respond to the debate, to respond to new clause 1 and to show that we are sticking up for shop workers. It is not good enough to defer responsibility on this.

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me, but it is not a question of deferring responsibility. It is the responsibility of the local police and crime commissioner and the chief constable, under our system of policing, to decide local policing priorities. That is why we had the police and crime commissioner elections a couple of years ago.

The right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) is assiduous in his parliamentary questions to me about retail crime, but if hon. Members have concerns that retailers and retail staff in their local area are not being looked after, I encourage them to take it up with their police and crime commissioner, because it really is their decision as to how local resources are prioritised.