Crime and Policing Bill (Third sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st April 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Vickers]

Amendment 33 would impose a financial penalty on those who receive multiple respect orders. This is about fairness, accountability and ensuring that our justice system is taken seriously.

A respect order is not a punishment; it is an opportunity. It gives individuals a chance to correct their behaviour and change course before more serious consequences arise, but what happens when someone repeatedly ignores that chance? What message do we send if the courts impose an order only for it to be disregarded time and again, with no further repercussions? The amendment would ensure that those who continue to defy the law will face meaningful consequences.

Antisocial behaviour has real victims. It disrupts neighbourhoods, damages businesses and makes people feel unsafe in their own communities. We cannot allow repeat offenders to believe they can break these orders without consequence. A fine is a clear, tangible penalty that reinforces the message that respect orders must be obeyed. We already have fines in place for many other public order offences. They are nothing new. The amendment would bring respect orders in line with other legal measures, ensuring that persistent offenders face escalating consequences.

Crucially, funds from the fines could be reinvested in tackling the very issues that led to the order in the first place, helping communities affected by antisocial behaviour. This is a common-sense amendment. It would give our justice system the tools that it needs to properly enforce respect orders.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that without this amendment the power of a respect order would be greatly diminished? As we have seen with antisocial behaviour orders and convictions for relatively minor offences, repeat offending is the problem. Without the weight of this amendment sitting behind respect orders, they are sufficiently diminished in value as a stand-alone.

[Matt Vickers]

We saw what happened with ASBOs: people started wearing them as a badge of honour. This amendment could strengthen respect orders, providing real sanctions and consequences for people who fail to engage with what is on offer and with the opportunity to change their behaviour. It is the right thing to do not only by the people who commit offences and need setting in a new direction but for the communities who suffer at their hands. Those communities want to see that there are real consequences for them, and that such people do not think that they are above the law and can get away with anything. It is entirely right to strengthen respect orders further.

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[Matt Vickers]

There are decisions to make about the extremity of the consequences and sanctions, but there is a choice. Is it about the victims who suffer sleepless nights and all this havoc, whose windows have gone through, who are abused and are petrified to live in their own home, or are we on the side of the families who wreak this behaviour and the young people who terrorise others? There is a choice there.

[Joe Robertson]

Government Members’ interventions suggest that they may have misread and misunderstood the amendment. They seem to think it means that someone with a respect order would be removed from the housing list. That is not what the amendment says; it is about prioritisation within the waiting list. These waiting lists are based on a set of a criteria that lead to a prioritisation. It seems to me uncontroversial—although it is possible to disagree with it, of course—to add another criterion to compiling a housing waiting list: does someone have a respect order? The amendment is not a mandatory provision. It states:

“A respect order may have the effect of moving any application”

down the list. The provision is discretionary, which addresses the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam. It may be that an overriding need of the family would mean that the power would not be used. There is nothing mandatory about this. It is entirely consistent with how waiting lists are compiled.

[Matt Vickers]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. The fact that housing authorities are made a relevant authority by the Bill is really powerful. We should give all these agencies—the housing associations, the police and the justice system—all the tools, the carrots and the sticks, that they need to manage and induce the correct behaviour. This measure would do that.

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Prevention is important, especially for our young people. I see this measure working in collaboration with the Government’s work on things such as youth hubs and looking at forms of early intervention with young people who potentially are about to spiral. We should not criminalise young people; we should be figuring out and addressing the root cause of the issues that are pushing them into antisocial behaviour. I fully support the respect orders; they are a real positive move forward, and I look forward to seeing their implementation.

[Joe Robertson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. Like every Member in the Committee and across the House, my constituency struggles with antisocial behaviour, particularly but not exclusively in towns. Individual instances of antisocial behaviour often are referred to—perhaps correctly—as low-level crime, but the problem is the combination of those activities, the hyper-prolific nature of antisocial behaviour, whereby a few individuals cause a huge amount of the problems, and the knock-on effect for the rest of the people living in those neighbourhoods, who are law-abiding citizens trying to go about their daily lives. Antisocial behaviour also feeds into the fear of crime, which is relevant—not just the level of crime, but fear of it among a given population.

In the town of Sandown in my constituency on the Isle of Wight, antisocial behaviour feeds into a major regeneration issue, as the state of some key buildings, which have been left to deteriorate, attracts antisocial behaviour. That is not to say that there is any justification for criminality or antisocial behaviour, but it would be false to assume that the physical environment in which people live does not have an effect, particularly on younger people who may be struggling to fill their time, as they look for work or further education opportunities.

I welcome the new respect orders, in line with most of the things that have been said today, because of the beefing up of the current rules and the attempt to add weight to the deterrent available to law enforcement. However, as the measure includes criminal sanctions for an offence that can be tried and heard in the Crown court, the Government have to be alive to the potential—indeed, the almost certainty—that it will increase the workload of the courts. It is all very well for Members such as the hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh to talk about the previous Government not having done enough, but to assume that words, even good words, in a Bill will solve everything on their own, I suggest might be a little simplistic. The Government will have to do more.

[David Taylor]

The hon. Member is being a bit unfair. The Bill is not being presented in isolation. As a Government, we are also recruiting 13,000 new officers, a starting point to getting neighbourhood policing back in a fit and proper state. Does he not welcome that move?

[Matt Vickers]

rose—

[Joe Robertson]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Matt Vickers]

Recruiting 13,000 police officers sounds really good, but about a third of them will be special constables and about a third redeployed from other parts of the police force. When someone rings 999, because they want that emergency response service, they may wait even longer, because the response police officers will have been moved into neighbourhoods.

[Matt Vickers]

The Government are redeploying them, so they are taking them from somewhere. We would welcome any information about where the Government will or will not redeploy them from, but this is important. The Government cannot say 13,000 more are arriving, when it is about 3,000 more.

[Joe Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. To respond to the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, we can debate policing all he likes—indeed, the previous Government increased police numbers—but the point I was making was about the courts, because we are talking about increasing the burden on Crown courts. I am not making a point against him or the hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh, but I am sure they would both agree that the Government have to address the pressure on the court system. I support this provision, but although Bills such as this are well intended, they will add pressure to the prison population and the court systems if the Government do not make further provision.

[Matt Bishop]

Perhaps the hon. Member can offer some thoughts as to why we might have huge backlogs in the court system.

[Joe Robertson]

I am slightly surprised that such an uncontroversial point is being met with such incredulity and that I am being asked to provide the hon. Member’s Government with solutions. He has to get used to the fact that his Government are in power now. They will have to find their own solutions.

[Matt Vickers]

I would never seek to defend anything that any Government have ever done—people do get things wrong—but the previous Government were right to toughen up sentences for the worst and most violent offences. It was right that we put people away for longer. It was right that we did not release people during the pandemic, or at anything like the levels that some other countries did. It was right, therefore, that the Government had the biggest prison-building programme since the Victorian era. It is right that we put those people in prison. It is right that in another Bill Committee I have been saying for weeks that foreign national offenders should be removed without the need for a 12-month prison sentence in the meantime. We have got to where we have got to for lots of reasons. I think tougher sentences were a good thing, and that it was right that we did not release people early and that we built more prison places than have been built since the Victorian era.

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[Joe Robertson]

Thank you for that advice, Mr Pritchard. I am too generous in giving way, but the shadow Minister put it much better than I could myself.

[Matt Bishop]

rose—

[Joe Robertson]

I am willing to give way again, in the spirit of generosity.

[Matt Bishop]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. To clarify, I did not ask for solutions; our Government have the solutions.

[Joe Robertson]

I think we will have to leave the debate about which Government have the solutions to another day, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

I repeat my point, which I do not think is controversial and would hope is accepted: the Labour party will have to pay extra attention to court backlogs when provisions such as this, which I support, are introduced.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

We have had a wide-ranging debate on clause 1, moving from the specifics of the respect order through to policing numbers. I am very proud that we will have 13,000 additional police officers and PCSOs by the end of this Parliament. I have to say that the idea that there was the largest prison-building scheme since the Victorian times under the previous Conservative Government is utter bunkum—they built 500 places. That is why we are in the position we are in at the moment. I know that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East is a new Member, but those of us who have been in the House a little while remember what 14 years of Conservative government have delivered for this country. That is why this Government are determined to start to deal with some of the problems around antisocial behaviour, crime and the fact that we do not have enough prison places.

Getting back to clause 1 of this important Bill, I am pleased that there is acceptance across the House of the need for respect orders and a general welcoming of them. The shadow Minister asked some very detailed questions, which I will come to in a moment, but I want to comment on the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead. The horrific case in his constituency of a child who cannot go out to play and the stress that antisocial behaviour puts on the family is clearly totally unacceptable. That is why respect orders will play their part, along with the housing civil injunctions, in tackling some of these problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton made an important point about individuals with addiction problems and how it is absolutely vital that respect orders deal with the requirements to get to grips with antisocial behaviour and whether an addiction issue is driving it. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Windsor talked about the antisocial behaviour that occurs even in some of the more prosperous areas of the country—he talked about Eton. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West and Leigh made an important point about prevention, the work around youth hubs and the prevention partnerships that we will be introducing.

At the very start of the debate on the amendments, the shadow Minister asked whether respect orders would interfere with individuals’ work commitments. I can reassure him that it will be for the court, which is judicially independent, to set the conditions of a respect order. Courts are well practised in navigating types of circumstances, such as where a person works or lives, and we expect the courts to consider those issues when making respect orders. For example, a court is unlikely to prevent the respondent from entering a defined area if they need to access it to attend work.

The shadow Minister asked how the Environment Agency will use respect orders. The Environment Agency can play a role, particularly where an environmental ASB offence is committed, for example vandalism of local open spaces or parks, or things like that.

The shadow Minister was particularly concerned about without-notice applications for respect orders. We know that courts can issue without-notice respect orders when the matter is urgent—the shadow Minister referred to that. Courts are familiar with doing that and have done it for a very long time with civil injunctions.

The shadow Minister also asked about the burden of proof required for the courts to approve a respect order and how much police will work with communities to ensure that repeated reporting and gathering of evidence has the desired effect. The court must be satisfied that, on the balance of probabilities, the respondent has engaged in, or threatened to engage in, conduct that has or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The court must also be satisfied that it is just and convenient to grant the respect order for the purposes of preventing the respondent from engaging in antisocial behaviour. That is the same legal test as for the current injunction.

I was pleased that the shadow Minister welcomed the fact that housing bodies will be able to seek orders from the courts; I think that is welcome across the House. Police are just one of the number of agencies, including councils and housing authorities, that can apply for respect orders. It is expected that a multi-agency approach will be taken when applying for respect orders. We are also introducing mandatory checklists for the relevant agency to complete prior to applying for a respect order, to ensure proportionate use.

Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Sorry about the lighting—we are just trying to see if we can find a shilling for the meter.

Graham Wynn: I do not have much to add. Paul said all that needs saying. Not only shop workers see the violence, but the customers—they are affected also. They do not expect to see violence and abuse in their store. Paul has described it very well.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Q This is directed at any one of you on the panel. To take you back, an area where I think you all share the same opinion is that, under clause 16, theft from a shop should be triable either way, regardless of the value of goods—so below £200. I think the suggestion is that the police do not seem to be as responsive or as interested if it is a summary-only offence. I suggest that that is a policing issue and that the unintended consequence of removing the threshold could be to put low-value offences into the Crown court system, which is more expensive and with a longer backlog, and you might find the system is gamed another way. I am just inviting an opinion on whether a police policy issue might be the problem in terms of where they respond. A summary-only offence is still a crime.

Christopher Morris: This is not necessarily my speciality; I think Paul is more experienced in this area.

Paul Gerrard: I have a couple of points. I understand the point you are making. Less than £200 is still a significant sum of product—as I said, you could get 20 bottles of wine or the entire meat section—so I would not underplay that. The second point is that there is something here about making it clear that walking into stores to take whatever you want is not acceptable. That is a message that this place should send. Helping the police to understand that is really important.

In terms of how the criminal justice system then handles that, I take your point absolutely. But it is not okay for someone to walk in, make some threats, steal whatever they want and walk out again. At the minute, because the police do not, in general, look at things under £200, unless there are aggravating factors like violence, that is what happens.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Just to clarify, I agree with you on that point. My problem is this idea that a summary-only offence is not really an offence at all so the police do not need to attend. I think we are all agreed on that: it is plainly an offence. My worry is that pushing things into the Crown court creates a whole load of other problems.

[The Chair]

Mr Wynn, do you want to comment?

Graham Wynn: Not specifically. It is an attitude that has grown up. The police have to make judgments as to whether they go or not; with limited resources, they have clearly come to the conclusion that if it is under £200, Parliament did not mean them to worry too much. That has perhaps grown up as the culture, if you like, and these measures will hopefully help stop that, simply because it could be an either-way offence, and that will make a difference.

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[Louise Jones]

Q The Bill introduces a new offence of cuckooing, and I am particularly interested in your opinion because, unfortunately, a lot of cuckooing takes place in council properties. Having lived on a street where cuckooing was going on, I have seen at first hand the impact on the wider neighbourhood as well. I am interested to get your views on how welcome the provision is and how effective it will be.

Councillor Garratt: I welcome the provision. Again, there is a hint of déjà vu about it. This is serious. We talk about county lines-type crime. Often London is the originator of that, and therefore we are dealing with the holders of those lines. This type of crime, where people take over a vulnerable individual’s property, often in quite unpleasant ways, is currently quite difficult. There are a number of provisions that connect to it, including some of the modern slavery provisions, but I welcome wholeheartedly a specific offence for that type of crime, which is definitely prevalent and definitely needs tackling.

Councillor Conway: We are echoing each other a bit here, which is good. To echo that, we very much welcome the provision. I note that case studies from councils were actually used to argue for the provisions in the Bill. The LGA’s modern slavery network will be publishing further case studies. Obviously there has to be a link between the strategies for modern slavery and for violence against women and girls; it all has to talk to each other.

I have signed closure orders on behalf of residents to stop issues—everything that comes with this, not just in the property itself, but for a local authority or the residents in the area. I cannot help but reference Clear, Hold, Build, because it has fundamentally changed the way things are happening locally, together with a proactive approach by our local police. It has fostered that more collaborative approach, and the more residents are able to speak up and feel that they are heard and that authorities will listen and recognise the problem on the ground, the more effective we can all be. This one has been a long time coming.

[Joe Robertson]

Q To the extent that it is relevant, I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in that I am a serving Isle of Wight councillor.

I want to take the panel back to clause 45(2) and the duty to report. I note that the police and local authorities are treated as interchangeable in the provision about who a person must report to. I invite any thoughts about that idea that the police and local authorities are somehow interchangeable and have similar skillsets. Councillor Conway referred to the training that would be needed with local authorities, but clearly there are so many different ways you could report. Although the police are used to reporting of criminal activity, the council does not routinely receive reports in that way. I invite either of you to comment on that slightly unexpected and unusual interchangeability of police and local authorities.

Councillor Conway: Again, we would be happy to write with more detail on that. Where that relationship works effectively, I understand the interchangeability. I think it probably needs looking at. There are effective systems on the ground that do enable that, but maybe it needs looking at more closely. We can send you more information.

Councillor Garratt: If we are dealing with criminal behaviour, which I think we are in this circumstance, the obvious place to report it is the police. I do not know whether there is a provision for reporting to the council if someone is already involved with a social worker, for example; that might be deemed to be an adequate way to report it. But if the purpose of the provision is to make sure that these crimes are investigated and prosecuted, then the obvious place to report that to would be the police.

[David Burton-Sampson]

Q My questions have been answered, but I will ask another while I have the floor. The Bill provides the ability to extend community safety accreditation schemes, basically allowing councils to take on more powers that would normally be available only to the police. Do you think that is a good thing for your local authorities?

Councillor Conway: The general point about all that is that additional funding is needed to increase community safety partnerships’ capacity to deliver things on the ground. Reforming the duty and partnership landscape to ensure that the partnerships are equipped with the powers and partners to deliver would be very important.

Councillor Garratt: On the ground, in practical terms, dealing with crime and connected behaviour very often does involve partnership between the local council and the police—and other bodies, such as the Probation Service and so on. It is therefore quite normal—in fact, it is good practice—for there to be collaborative working. If you have a process of collaborative working that is working well, as I think we have in Croydon and in Sutton, it seems to make little sense not to be able to extend it.

Councillor Conway: It is important to focus on the preventive aspect as well. Just before this meeting, I was in a meeting of London’s violence reduction unit with the safer partnership chairs, and I am aware that the Government’s new provision around preventive partnerships is evolving. I think that runs alongside this and is an important step forward.

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[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you very much for your evidence, Dr Newport. I want to look back to something that you said at the beginning of your remarks about encouraging citizens to use CCTV in their homes to better allow the police to prosecute crimes. One issue that does recur, even when CCTV is available in people’s homes and they can say to the police, “Look, I’ve got this here for you to be able to use to catch who perpetrated this burglary”, or whatever else, is that the CCTV is not always used in the way people would like. I wonder if you could speak to that.

I think there is also a bit of a regional inequality point. In my part of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, there is live access to CCTV in York. That can be important in allowing people to deal with crimes in the moment, as they find them, and to direct police forces to the right spot. In Selby, however, our CCTV looks like it comes out of the 1970s; it is too blurry and grainy to use half the time, and it poses major challenges for the police. Can you point to how those practical realities affect your earlier remarks?

Dr Newport: That is why home CCTV is so useful. Cameras now are vastly cheaper than they were even 20 years ago when a lot of this infrastructure was put in place. You can get high definition cameras now on your doorbell in a way that 20 years ago would have been obscenely expensive. For the price of £30, homeowners with one of those cameras can probably outcompete, in a lot of ways, the national infrastructure or otherwise that was put in a long time ago.

I completely agree that it is extremely frustrating that a lot of the time, even when there is CCTV, it is not being looked at or used. There are several ways of encouraging that and making it easier. One is that there should be clauses on the procurement of artificial intelligence systems that could scan that footage. It is extremely likely that current systems can do that, and future systems will certainly be able to do it. Give a system indications of what to look for, and it can highlight that to officers within seconds. We should have that, and the fact that it is not used at all is astounding.

It should also be the case that officers have training so that they look at footage in the most time-efficient way. For example, with binary searches, rather than viewing the whole footage on fast forward to see an incident, if you are looking for a bike missing, for instance, you watch the bike. You check in halfway through the footage—is it there or not? If it is, you check at 75%—is it there or not? You keep doing that in halves, and you can do an extremely fast search. It might take you minutes, when otherwise it would take you hours to go through footage. Some officers are still going through hours and hours of footage rather than simply using methods that we know work extremely well.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Solving a set of issues in a given day depends on well-worded law that is targeted at the problem it is trying to solve. Can you share your views on backing that up with the appropriate resources, be it money or technology, for the police to be able to deliver on the law? Over the last decades, we have seen more and more criminal law come into being without necessarily the resource to back it up. Can you comment on the interplay between well-worded law and the resources for police to be able to act on it?

Dr Newport: On the resources point, some of my ideas here have been around CCTV procurement and AI. I think those things would help to reduce police time and costs. It should also be ensured that the public can see the effects of these things—that they are transparent and we are able to check on them, which at the moment we do not seem to be able to do. The fact that I have to try to ask an MP to ask a question in Parliament about the Connect system and still cannot get a response—there is still no way of checking—is completely and utterly unacceptable.

It is also the case that the British public, in survey after survey, put healthcare as the thing that they want to see the most funding to. Education and criminal justice are joint second and third. Government funding is nowhere near the public’s priorities on this. That is what I would point to on the funding question.

[The Chair]

Any further questions? No. In that case, Dr Newport, thank you very much indeed for finding the time to talk to us. We are grateful for your evidence.

Examination of Witness

Sam Durham gave evidence.

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[Keir Mather]

Q I want to ask about the confidence that individual farmers will have in these measures. We are in an unenviable situation at the moment. Farmers in my constituency deal with criminality frequently, and they have to step up themselves and put themselves in danger. I was speaking to a farmer in Brotherton the other month who had chased a gang of people on off-road bikes across his farm, putting himself at personal risk and danger. Do you think that, if implemented correctly, these measures will provide individual farmers with reassurance that they will not have to put themselves in similar danger in the future?

Sam Durham: I hope so. In general, the rural community and farmers have a good relationship with the police. They recognise the challenges the police have with low numbers, but where forces have a rural crime team, they build a link with the local community and the farming community. When I go to meetings around the country, I hear that rural crime is a big issue, but they support the police; they just want to give the police the tools to deal with the criminality they are having to deal with themselves.

Certainly, the link to organised criminality is worth investigating as well. The theft of a quad bike from a farm may seem a low-level crime, but it is potentially funding bigger networks. On the fly-tipping side, there is evidence that waste crime is linked to organised criminal activity as well.

Putting the picture together—I have given you a long answer—I think farmers will be reassured that the Government are taking this issue seriously. Alongside some of the other legislation, on equipment theft and livestock worrying, the Bill shows that rural crime is being taken seriously.

[Joe Robertson]

Q May I take you back to fly-tipping? We heard earlier how it is a problem for local authorities, but they are clearly more resourced than private landowners, who often own the sites where rubbish is dumped. Is there any opportunity missed in the Bill to try to tackle fly-tipping, particularly for people who, through no fault of their own, have waste dumped on their private property?

Sam Durham: The guidance to local authorities is key, and there are some really good examples of local authorities that are bringing all the agencies—the Environment Agency, the police and so on—together and having a co-ordinated approach to tipping. That means that members of the public know who to go to when they see an incident. There is not a general approach to that across the country, so if there is any way of legislating for that approach, or putting it in the local authority guidance, to make that happen, that would be key.

For the victim—the landowner—it is about knowing where to report, so having a single reporting mechanism that gets to the right people. They cannot view a tip and say, “That’s hazardous waste; that’s the Environment Agency’s responsibility”, “That’s the local authority’s responsibility” or, “That’s just rubbish thrown out of the back of a car.” They cannot judge that. A single reporting system that allowed them to log it and then found the right person to deal with it is something we would be campaigning for.

[The Chair]

Mr Durham, thank you for joining us and for so ably expressing the concerns of the National Farmers Union of England and Wales. We are most grateful to you.

Examination of Witness

Venita Yeung gave evidence.

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[Anna Sabine]

Q I think you are doing really well, Ms Yeung; thank you for coming in. Just a quick question, although I probably know the answer: can I assume that your concerns about face coverings would also apply to the use of live facial recognition technology for protests?

Venita Yeung: Yes.

[Joe Robertson]

Q I appreciate that this is not a debate between elected Members, but I am not entirely sure from that exchange with the Minister whether the witness got the idea that face coverings would be banned only if there was a suspicion of a crime. There is a defence here for using face coverings to protect someone’s health or for “religious observance”. Perhaps Ms Yeung is looking for another type of defence whereby if someone believes they are under political threat—perhaps from a Government or organisation abroad—that would be a fair defence for wanting to protect their identity. I wonder whether she might comment on that possibility.

Venita Yeung: Um. Yes, I think—

[The Chair]

It is quite all right; take your time.

[Joe Robertson]

Can I reword that, to be helpful? In the Bill, there is a defence to allow people to wear a face covering. One of the examples is if it is for their health, so I imagine there might be a health reason why someone might need to wear a mask. Another example is that if someone has a face covering because of a religious belief, they should not have to remove it in a protest. If there was another defence—I am not advocating for it, but I am suggesting it—whereby someone could say that they are under threat from a foreign Government or organisation and they fear for their personal safety, would that satisfy your concern for people from Hong Kong, for example, but also other places?

Venita Yeung: Yes. I think this is a very proportionate defence to add to the Bill. This would definitely safeguard communities against their fear of being spied on by their peers or state-aligned actors—for example, the state-aligned Chinese international students who violently attacked Hong Kong protesters in the Southampton protests in 2023.

[The Chair]

Q Ms Yeung, I suspect that there are probably a number of things that you wish to say to the Committee that you have not really had the opportunity to express. Please feel free to write to the Committee through the secretariat, and your views will be given the proper attention. Feel free to put any other comments that you have in writing. I suspect that it may have taken you a fairly considerable amount of courage to come here this afternoon; we really are most grateful.

Venita Yeung: Thank you. I just want to add another point here before I finish. For many of these people—for many members of my community—I think it is really important to strike a balance, because these protests are not just a way for them to express their dissenting voices, but part of their identity and part of the community cohesion. It is also the reason why over 200,000 Hongkongers are now in the UK. It is the reason why they are here. I hope the Committee will take account of that factor when considering the Bill, and view these clauses with that lens.

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[The Chair]

I call Joe Robertson for a 15-second question, to be followed by a 15-second answer.

[Joe Robertson]

Q If I may say so, from the evidence we have heard today there appears to be a loophole on spiking, in that somebody has to intend to annoy, but we have heard there can be reckless activity around a prank. Will the Minister go away and consider whether gross negligence around pranking could be captured under the spiking law?

Alex Davies-Jones: I heard that evidence, as did the officials, and we have clarified that under the current legislation, pranking would be covered; it is explicitly covered by this as well.

[Joe Robertson]

I invite the Minister just to look at and explore the wording. I am not convinced on the wording, but thank you.

[The Chair]

Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions of this panel, so on behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence. It also brings us to the end of today’s sitting. When the Committee sits again, it will begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Keir Mather.)

Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Sullivan]

A bit of both. We have the youth injunctions, which could help with ASB in our communities, but how do the youth diversion orders intersect with that?

Chief Constable De Meyer: I agree that there is an intersection between the two. Counter-terrorism policing is certainly extremely supportive of youth diversion orders. Interestingly and worryingly, there has been a significant increase in the number of young people featuring in the casework of counter-terrorism policing. In 2019, just 4% of those arrested for counter-terrorism offences were aged under 18, but by 2023 that had become 19%. That poses serious challenges in respect of not just the threat but the caseload. Naturally, counter-terrorism policing wants wherever possible to avoid criminalising at a very young age people who might themselves have been exploited by extremists.

It is felt that these orders will divert a young person away from being labelled a terrorist, if I can put it that way, and engaging in further offending. They open up the possibility of some supportive and some prohibitive measures, so there is both a carrot and a stick. They enable colleagues to manage the risk at a much earlier stage than is currently the case.

On the matter of Prevent, which is of long standing, it has been essentially voluntary for young people. There has not been any need to compel their involvement in the necessary diversion. We see this measure as a means of introducing just about the right amount of compulsion to the Prevent set of activities, without making it entirely mandatory.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Q I will take the panel back briefly to the powers around face coverings in protests. Given that protests are often political in nature, does anyone on the panel see challenges presented by having to exercise that power—challenges around perceptions or accusations of political bias? What are your reflections on the challenges that having to exercise that power will create?

Chief Constable De Meyer: It is important to emphasise, first of all, that we will not have to exercise the power. It is a power that is available to us that we may use, and not one that we must necessarily use. That having been said, one accepts entirely the potential for people on one side of a debate to suggest that the power ought to have been used and that it has not been used on another side. I can only say that it is for commanders in each individual circumstance to ensure that they abide by the principle of policing without fear or favour, impartially. It is difficult for me to say much more than that, because there are so many circumstances in which it might come to pass, but I do recognise the difficulty.

Tiff Lynch: It is down to interpretation. It is also relevant to communication and how the general public have an understanding of what police officers are out there doing. We are seeing actions of police officers at these protests being placed all over social media. It is a snippet of information, and as a result you get misinformation and disinformation, which then heightens society’s frustration. I think there is a role to be played by everyone, certainly within Government, to communicate those powers and actions to the public so that everyone has that clear understanding. Then it is important, again, to have the support, certainly for the officers we represent, out there on the frontline, in doing what they are doing.

[The Chair]

I am afraid this will probably have to be the last question to this set of witnesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Burton-Sampson]

Q I echo my colleagues in thanking you for all you do in this vital area. You rightly said that spiking affects everybody; unfortunately, it is something that men and women can be prone to. The Government have a target of halving the level of violence against women and girls, and this measure is hopefully part of that package. How important do you think it will be in halving violence against women and girls?

Colin Mackie: It is certainly very important, because girls are still are the highest target in the group. People want to go out and enjoy themselves, and women should be able to have a night out with friends and be confident that they are safe. If they want to leave that drink for second, they should be able to. They should not have to worry that someone will add something to their drink if they go to dance, go to the toilet or are distracted. This measure is a great way of moving forward, because in the future you want all youngsters to be able to say, “I’m going for a night out, and I want to have a nice, safe night out.” That is the way forward—it has to be the way forward.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Looking at the purpose of why someone might spike, the Bill includes the words “injure”, “aggrieve” and “annoy”. From your experience, might somebody seek to spike for any other purpose that is not captured by, say, “annoy”, which is probably the broadest term?

Colin Mackie: Revenge, possibly. A girl could spike another girl because she is jealous, for example, about something that has already happened. An ex-boyfriend, in particular—or an ex-girlfriend, in some cases—could spike someone. To me, revenge is another possibility.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Could there be something that might appear to have a more frivolous excuse—you talked about pranking—but that still needs to be captured by the Bill and may not be captured by the word “annoy”?

Colin Mackie: Pranking is probably the one. That is what people will do—it is totally random, and there is no reason for a lot of what they do. They pick a victim out. I have spoken to police officers, and one of the things they say is that prank spiking is growing a bit because drugs have become so easily accessible and cheap. I spoke to a group from Australia who said spiking had dropped slightly because the police had done a blitz on drugs, so the price of drugs had gone up; when the price of drugs went up, spiking came down. There is always a chance that it happens just because people can easily access these drugs and they will use them.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that this will probably have to be the final question to this witness.

Employer National Insurance Contributions: Police Forces

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

I will not take another intervention, because I cannot quite get over the word “entertaining” being used about such a devastating policy, which will have devastating impacts on the streets of all our communities. There is a real risk that police forces will have to scale back on recruitment—that is not entertaining. There is a real risk that they will have to cut back on vital training—that is not entertaining—or reduce operational spending in other areas, which again is not entertaining. These decisions could have serious consequences for the police service’s ability to deliver an effective police force. The planned national insurance increases will make it harder for police forces to recruit new officers, particularly in areas where the cost of living is already high. The Government have committed to recruiting more officers, yet those efforts will be undermined by these fiscal pressures through taxation.

A common theme of this Government is their lack of foresight. They failed to consult with Back Benchers, public services and Government Departments before steamrolling ahead with this policy. They failed to understand the impact of the rise in employer national insurance costs on our public services, a mistake so basic that it is sometimes hard to comprehend. I think we all remember the immediate outcry that we heard from GPs, charities, social care providers and hospices. I remember being in the main Chamber when the Secretary of State for Health came to the Dispatch Box to answer questions on this policy, and he was taken aback. He did not know how to answer those questions, and his plea to the Chancellor at the time was, “Where are we going to get that extra money? I hope I will get that extra money, and I will come back to Members later with answers.”

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government must know that this policy is damaging the ability of the police to operate? The Government know it is causing damage to the public sector, and that is why they have exempted the NHS, but they have failed to exempt other public sector services such as the police. They cannot pretend that this policy is not causing damage.