Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland]

I am astonished. The reality is that antisocial behaviour in the year to March 2022 is down 37%. [Interruption.] My hon. Friends may also be intrigued to hear that, nationally, burglary is down 24%, neighbourhood crime by 33%, and vehicle offences by 28%. That has been made possible by the commitment the Government have made to increasing police numbers by more than 20,000. Perhaps the answer is that Conservative police and crime commissioners deliver for their communities.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

5. What recent progress she has made on tackling county lines drug gangs.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

14. What steps she is taking to tackle the exploitation of children and young adults by county lines criminal networks.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Tom Pursglove)]

Through our drugs strategy, we are investing up to £145 million in the county lines programme to tackle ruthless gangs harming our communities. That includes providing specialist support to victims of county lines exploitation and their families. Since 2019, police activity funded by the programme has resulted in more than 2,400 line closures, 8,000 arrests and 9,500 individuals engaged through safeguarding interventions.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Over the summer recess I was proud to join our brave Staffordshire police officers on a drugs raid of a suspected county lines operation, sweeping the scrotes and their drugs off the streets of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. Sadly, we have seen an increase in filthy drug thugs peddling their dirt on our streets. It is because of this that I ask my hon. Friend to join me in supporting the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) to have monkey dust reclassified as a class A substance and increase the prison sentence on the parasites who plague our community.

[Tom Pursglove]

I would of course be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to talk about this issue in more detail. Monkey dust is a street name for certain cathinones. The Government recognise the harm of cathinones, which is why they are controlled under class B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The penalty for supplying a class B drug is 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. There are no plans to reclassify those drugs, although the Government keep drug classification under review and will seek to take account of any new evidence of harms.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are working constructively with councils. To be fair, I have to say that Glasgow is stepping forward, as always, to find accommodation. It is about finding suitable accommodation, not just any accommodation for them. We have also had constructive discussions with the Scottish Government—credit where it is due to Neil Gray—about where we may be able to go further in creating housing, particularly in Scotland, to accommodate many of those families; we all want them to be found accommodation in a permanent home.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Will the Minister help me get more alley gates, better CCTV and more street lighting to tackle the scumbags who blight alleyways across Stoke-on-Trent, dealing and shooting up drugs and fly-tipping all over the community?

[The Minister of State, Home Department (Tom Pursglove)]

Of course, as well as the additional police funding that has been made available for my hon. Friend’s force area, and the additional officer numbers through the uplift programme, it is fair to say that one of the important pieces of work that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been progressing is another round of the safer streets fund, which I am sure his area will be interested in.