Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Jo White and Yvette Cooper
2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025

(2 days, 4 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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My hon. Friend is exactly right that we need the police back on the streets. Let us be honest: everyone can see this in their community. People know. Conservative Members may think that everything was hunky-dory at the end of their 14 years in government, but communities across the country can see the reality. As part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee, we need to get more boots on the beat, and we need more town centre patrols by officers who know the community and are trusted by them to go after local perpetrators and prevent persistent crime. These are not outlandish demands—they are just the basics. We need a return to the Peel principles that lie at the heart of British policing, including the principle that the police are the public and the public are the police. We need trusted officers in the community, working to keep people safe.

The Bill gives neighbourhood police more powers to tackle the local crimes that undermine and damage communities: antisocial behaviour, street theft, shoplifting, harassment in our town centres. In too many areas, those powers were too often weakened. Travelling around the country, I and many others will have heard the same story too many times—shop owners who say that thieves have become increasingly brazen; crime driven by organised gangs; elderly shoppers who say that they do not go into town any more because they do not feel safe; people who have had their phones stolen in the street, with all the details of their life ripped away from them; and residents driven mad by the soaring number of roaring off-road bikes and scooters driven in an antisocial and intimidating way.

In the two years before the election, shop theft went up by more than 60%. Snatch theft, mainly the theft of mobile phones, went up by more than 50% in two years. Thousands of such crimes were reported every single day, yet the police have been left with too few powers to act. Too often, because of changes made by the Conservative Government 10 years ago, they have been left with weakened powers to tackle those antisocial behaviours and crimes.

Jo White Portrait Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
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I welcome the introduction of a new offence of assaulting a shop worker. I have been in shops in Worksop where I have seen shop workers who are absolutely fearful of what will happen next, and I have seen food stolen before my eyes. Does the Secretary of State agree that local shops must become no-go areas for lawbreakers?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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My hon. Friend is right. The Bill introduces stronger action on retail crime. I thank the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the Co-op, the British Retail Consortium, the Association of Convenience Stores and more for their determined campaigning over many years to protect shop workers. They are the staff who kept their shops open and kept our local communities going through the pandemic, but in recent years they have had to face a truly disgraceful escalation in threats, abuse and violence. Our party has campaigned on this measure for very many years. Through the Bill, we will introduce a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, sending the message loud and clear that these disgraceful crimes must not be tolerated, because everyone has a right to feel safe at work.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Jo White and Yvette Cooper
Thursday 16th January 2025

(1 month, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the importance of any independent inquiry is the independence of the decisions made by the chair about how it should be pursued. The inquiry led by Baroness Jay into child sexual abuse took seven years—that was a decision made independently by Baroness Jay and the panel. They took evidence from 7,000 victims right across the country. They pursued detailed investigations in different areas, including into churches, religious organisations, residential homes and schools. The inquiry into child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs on our streets took two years.

First, we want a rapid audit that fills the gaps that were left by the independent inquiry, such as on the scale and characteristics of child sexual exploitation across the country. That work will rightly be done by Baroness Casey. Secondly, we want more police investigations under way, including the victims’ right to review. Thirdly, we want Tom Crowther to be able to work with other areas where there are local failings and problems, to pursue successful local inquiries such as Telford, to get to the heart of local failures and make sure that there is accountability.

Jo White Portrait Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
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I remain shocked that only two MPs stepped up and attended and participated in the Alexis Jay five-year inquiry into child sex abuse—my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and Lord Mann, when he was the Bassetlaw MP. As its new MP, it is my duty and responsibility to carry on that fight for justice.

Where grooming gangs have been operating, whether they are white, Pakistani-origin or church gangs, or taking place behind the closed doors of private homes, the bright light of an inquiry will expose who they are, where the cover-ups are and who is responsible. Every single perpetrator should be hunted down and jailed. I have no time for the grandstanders or the people who turn a blind eye. This is the biggest challenge of our Parliament. I find it stunning that the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), is not in his place for this critical statement.

Inquiries in areas where the gangs operate will give sick and evil perpetrators no place to hide. National oversight for Government is essential, ensuring swift legal action and the mapping of gangs, their links and their co-ordination—when and where they are ferrying girls across county lines. Does the Home Secretary agree that we need to end this tyranny of child abuse and put words into action?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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I agree. These terrible crimes have been ignored for too long. There are currently 127 major police operations under way on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming, across 29 different police forces. The independent inquiry identified that child sexual exploitation happens across all police force areas and all communities. All areas should ensure that they have the proper systems in place to follow up on what is happening to missing children, such as the vulnerable kids who stay out overnight, or those who go missing from residential care homes. Too often, that is still not happening and too often, we still get reports, even though those are basic things that all police forces and local authorities should be doing.

That is why we have strengthened the powers for victims to get a review, and that is why we are requiring police forces to look back at historical cases, because we know that cases are not being reported and not being investigated. That is where the fastest action needs to be, to go after the perpetrators who are still on our streets and still getting away with it. They will continue to do so unless police forces and local councils work together to put perpetrators behind bars.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Jo White and Yvette Cooper
Monday 6th January 2025

(2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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I welcome the hon. Member’s really important point about the response having to be colour-blind and class-blind. It has to see these things for what they are: really terrible crimes, often against the most vulnerable young people, as he says. Young people were dismissed because they were vulnerable due to the difficult experiences that they might have had. Young girls were often not taken seriously, and myths operated in the way that services responded. A lot of work has been done to challenge those myths, but the reality is that unless we have a proper, strong performance management framework in place, and strong requirements on local organisations and agencies to respond and to take this issue seriously enough, the risk is that it just becomes lost in a corner, as opposed to being treated as the very serious crime that it is. That is why we want to embed this as part of a proper performance framework for policing, and to work with local councils too.

Jo White Portrait Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
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Professor Jay heard from my constituent Terry Lodge, who was fostered and lived a life of slavery, with no education and no childhood. He has suffered the consequences throughout his life. Nottinghamshire county council accepted all liability for its failings. To its shame, the council is still to make an offer of compensation. Does the Home Secretary agree that although Jay’s recommendations must be implemented in full, Nottinghamshire county council must also step up and do the right thing?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the responsibility of local councils to recognise the things that have gone wrong in the past, to recognise the responsibilities that they owe to local victims and survivors, and to provide the support that those victims and survivors need. I know that my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister will keep in touch with her about progress, but it is really important that all councils make sure that they recognise their responsibilities.

Border Security: Collaboration

Debate between Jo White and Yvette Cooper
Wednesday 11th December 2024

(3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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We need to clear the backlog and the chaos in the asylum system that we have inherited. There is already a detention system as part of both the immigration and asylum systems. However, the core issue over a long period of time has been around the lack of proper enforcement and a proper system to ensure that the rules in both the asylum and the immigration systems are properly respected and enforced. We have seen returns, for example, drop substantially compared with under the last Labour Government. We have put additional staff into the returns and enforcement system, but also making sure those returns increase. That is why we have seen nearly 10,000 returns since the general election and a significant increase in returns of both foreign national offenders and failed asylum cases to make sure the system is properly respected.

Jo White Portrait Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
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When I was elected to Parliament, I promised my constituents in Bassetlaw that this Government would have a relentless focus on stopping the boats. However, I want to clarify this important point: when this Government came to office, the number of small boat arrivals for 2024 was running at around 700 higher than the previous record year of 2022. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the number of arrivals since the Government came to office is 11,000 lower than in that equivalent period in 2022, when the Conservative party was in charge and when the Rwanda deal was in place?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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My hon. Friend is right that the previous record year was 2022 and that in the first half of this year, when the previous Government were still in office, the arrivals were higher for that season—we all know that arrivals are affected by the season—than they were in 2022. Since the election, those arrivals have been significantly lower than they were in 2022, and had they continued at the record-high levels that the previous Government left us with, we would have had thousands more arrivals over the course of this year than we have, in fact, seen.

That is no comfort when lives are still being lost and when criminal gangs still take hold. However, it is important to recognise that we have not continued with the record-high levels we inherited from the previous Government. We should have a comprehensive programme across the Government and across the whole country to make sure we can tackle those dangerous gangs.

Violent Disorder

Debate between Jo White and Yvette Cooper
Monday 2nd September 2024

(6 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jo White Portrait Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
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I am grateful to the Home Secretary for her statement. I agree with her point that it is perfectly possible to have a debate in our country about immigration and many other issues without resorting to looting shops, attacking minority groups and throwing bricks at police. In my constituency, I regularly have conversations with local people who feel that net migration is too high, and who worry about the cost of asylum hotels and the number of people entering our country illegally. In electing me, they have elected an MP who is prepared to raise those issues in Parliament and work with the Government to address them. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is how a democratic country like ours should operate, rather than a bunch of hooligans using those subjects as an excuse to smash up shops, burn cars and attack the police?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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My hon. Friend is exactly right. We can all have an important debate in this place—the kind of debate that people have in communities across the country—about the issues that she raises around net migration and border control. Most of us across the country talk about all those issues and work out what actions and policies are needed. There is no excuse for taking the kind of violent action that we have seen, and attacking police officers, whose very job is to keep us safe.