Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Jon Pearce and Ben Coleman

2nd reading
Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)]

In High Peak, our five major towns—Buxton, Glossop, New Mills, Chapel-en-le-Frith and Whaley Bridge—have all been affected in different ways by the crimes the Bill seeks to address. Our town centres are the hearts of our community. At their best, they bring people together and create a sense of pride and belonging. When antisocial behaviour, theft and shoplifting are allowed to take root, it affects not just the victims, but the whole community. Sadly, the previous Government all too often wrote those crimes off as low level and left our communities feeling powerless. This Bill is for all the people I have met on the doorstep and who have come to my surgeries in High Peak—people who wanted a Government on their side, who would take these crimes seriously.

This Bill is for the retail workers and business owners who have to deal with shoplifting day in, day out. The previous Government effectively decriminalised shoplifting of goods worth less than £200, but this Bill will end the Tory shoplifters’ charter and go further by introducing a new criminal offence to better protect retail workers from assault.

This Bill is for all those who want our streets to be safer and pride to be restored to our communities. At the end of February, Derbyshire police had to put in place a dispersal order for two whole days in Glossop in order to tackle antisocial behaviour. The Bill will extend those powers to 72 hours. Through the new respect orders, it sends a clear message to persistent troublemakers: “We see you, we will disrupt you, and we will make your life as difficult as you have made the lives of others.”

[Ben Coleman]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is good news that at last we have a Government who are doing something about the scourge of off-road bikes and dangerous e-scooters on the pavements and in our parks by giving the police new powers to seize those vehicles immediately, instead of letting the problem continue? Although this should have happened much sooner, it will make the lives of my residents in Chelsea and Fulham, and people across the country, happier and safer.